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Originally Posted by BACKCHECK!!!
Yes, and he was the best centre is Toronto for years prior to that, and now that he is on another team he is still better than any centre in Toronto.
Carlyle hated Grabovski, and absolutely buried him, with the toughest line match-ups, and absolutely brutal zone-starts (36%).
On the other hand Kadri was the most sheltered player on the Leafs, faced the weakest line match-ups of any centre, and started 48% of his shifts in the offensive zone.
You could put a rubbermaid garbage bin at the dot in the offensive zone with MacArthur, and it's going to get more points than whoever is getting 36% zone starts playing with Jay "worst Corsi player in the entire NHL" McClement.
We saw the *exact* same situation with Stajan in Calgary. When a coach buries a player that badly, no amount of talent can dig him out. Coach is gone, miraculously Stajan is the best centre on the team again. Grabovski leaves, miraculously he's once again better than any other Leafs centre. Magic!
Sure, I mean when you're 23rd in the NHL in regulation wins, and are playing below .500 hockey (having given away more points than you've gotten), you don't want to mess with that kind of success.
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Grabovski was terrible last year. End of story. He was not better than a centre who had 44 points in 48 games. Kadri and Bozak were clearly better.
Grabovski would never do what he's doing in Washington on the Leafs.