When the 19-year-old Oilers rookie Nail Yakupov batted in the tying goal Thursday against the Los Angeles Kings with 4.7 seconds left in regulation, his celebratory slide through the neutral zone made for a memorable highlight of Edmonton’s 2-1 overtime victory.  He might also have been celebrating because the goal could have clinched his roster spot for the remainder of the season.  This year, 18- and 19-year-old rookies can play up to five N.H.L. games before their clubs must decide whether to return them to their junior clubs or to keep them on the roster.  If they stay longer, it counts as the first season on their entry level contracts and moves them a year closer to salary arbitration rights.  In a normal 82-game schedule, the limit is nine games. But this season was shortened to 48 games by the lockout, and most N.H.L. clubs will play their fifth games this weekend.  For several marquee 2011 and 2012 draft picks who made N.H.L. rosters after abbreviated training camps, the audition will soon be over. Decisions will have to be made about, among others: Yakupov, whose team plays its fifth game Monday; Boston’s Dougie Hamilton; the Devils’ Stefan Matteau; Montreal’s Alex Galchenyuk; Minnesota’s Mathew Dumba; Buffalo’s Mikhail Grigorenko; and Florida’s Jonathan Huberdeau.  The larger question teams face, however, is whether keeping these young players will help or hurt their development.  “Eighteen- or 19-year-olds have to be physically mature. Most of them are not,” Michael Santos, the Panthers’ assistant general manager, said.  “They have to be emotionally mature. Most of them are not. And almost all of them are not both.”  The Sabres have not kept any 18-year-old players during General Manager Darcy Regier’s 16-year tenure, but Grigorenko may become the first. Buffalo plays its fifth game Sunday.  “We’re going to continue to monitor,” Regier said. “When we get to five games, we’ll sit down and make a decision.”  The shortened season can skew player assessments, because all these teenagers were playing at the junior level while many N.H.L. veterans were idle and are still rounding into shape. But each game has greater significance and calls for experience, Regier said, and that works against the teenagers.  Grigorenko and Galchenyuk have averaged about 12 minutes a game. That’s probably not enough ice time for such skilled forwards who need to play to improve.  The NBC analyst Pierre McGuire has worked in player development for three N.H.L. clubs. He said still regretted the way the Hartford Whalers, for whom he was an assistant, handled Robert Petrovicky, the Czechoslovakian center and first-round pick they rushed into the N.H.L. as an 18-year-old in 1992.  “We felt he would be better served in the N.H.L. developing with us rather than going back to the A.H.L.,” McGuire said. “That was a huge mistake. We guessed wrong on him, the whole management team, and it sticks in your mind because that kid had serious talent.”  McGuire added: “You destroy their athletic confidence because you’re trying to build them back up, but the game is going a million miles an hour. It’s virtually impossible. There’s very few players under the age of 20 who can play in the N.H.L.”  Petrovicky lasted eight undistinguished seasons, totaling 27 goals and 38 assists in 208 games.  McGuire said some impatient general managers have pushed younger players because they wanted to prove to owners that they had drafted well. He said the wiser clubs, like Detroit, “would rather have players who are overripe than underdeveloped,” and will keep them in juniors and give them time as minor leaguers.  The Panthers must decide about Huberdeau, 19, before their sixth game on Tuesday. One argument for keeping him: he is a former Quebec Major Junior League All-Star who may have no more to prove. Sending him back could stagnate his growth.  Huberdeau is playing more than 15 minutes a game, and his linemates are Alexei Kovalev, acting as a mentor, and the enforcer George Parros, protecting him from physical abuse.  “You have to have a strong support system around them,” Santos said.  Santos began his management career as an assistant general manager for the Islanders in an era when the club routinely threw top draft picks into the lineup. The decision was more ownership’s, he said, because young players carry less expensive contracts than veterans do.  Santos rattled off the names of a succession of high Islanders draft picks: Eric Brewer, Tim Connolly, Rick DiPietro, Branislav Mezei, Raffi Torres, Taylor Pyatt and even Roberto Luongo, whom he said were “forced into the lineup more for financial reasons than anything else.”  He added: “Most if not all of those players are in the twilight of their careers now. And, personally, knowing them when they were drafted and seeing what they’ve done over 10, 12 and 14 years of their careers — if they lasted that long — I’d say that none of them reached the full potential they could have.”
This season, teams have five games to decide whether to keep their teenage players, thus advancing their contractual clocks, or send them to their junior clubs.