Will Gaudreau next 7 years be as good as his first 7 ?
Since his rookie year Gaudreau has play 519 regular season games missing 15 games and had 169 goals, the 31st most goals over that period and 493 pts good for 11th over that time. His .95 ppg was good for 10th spot. He had a plus-minus of +20
Just using old fashion counting stats he was a clear cut all star.
Looking around him in the top 30 of these categories it is hard to find anyone other than Cam Atkinson and Hurbedeau and Monahan that had less team success.
Gaudreau is/was not a player to build a successful team around.
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I doubt that his next 7 years will be as good as his first 7. He has fallen off from the heady Johnny Hockey days as the opposition has found out his tendencies and have limited his production after his career 2018-19 season.
He is a victim of analytics and analysis and better team defense strategies. He was unable to adapt or develop new strategies. He may have become a more physically cautious player over the last 2 seasons.
Will the Flames be able to get him a better supporting cast than Monahan and Gio were over the last 7 years?
Has he dropped his interest in playing in Philly or an eastern based team? Has interest in him dropped as his abilities as a team difference maker has been made more apparent?
IMHO the Flames will continue their mediocre success rate with Gaudreau as a top-3 core player. They need him to be a support player with 4-5 players better than him.
Can they find and pay 4-5 players more than 8M a year? Tkachuk and ?
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