On Wednesday, the Lightning decided to send Slater Koekkoek back to Syracuse. The young defender was a healthy scratch in each of the first three games for the Lighting. The popular and probably correct perception is that head coach John Cooper chose Nikita Nesterov as the sixth defender ahead of Koekkoek.
A quick look at Lightning Twitter will quickly confirm that fans think this is the wrong decision. The popular narrative is that Nesterov has regressed and Koekkoek should be starting ahead of him. I have several points of disagreement with this line of thought and I will try to walk through them methodically.