Quote:
Originally Posted by Lanny_McDonald
And what happens if he continues his disinterested play and becomes one of those middle-six forwards on a long-term deal? That's the whole point. Pay the guys that ARE going to produce all the time, and at a high level. If you're only getting 65 points out a Matthew Tkachuk, you may want to spend your money elsewhere.
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Who is the "elsewhere"? This team doesn't have another player anywhere near the quality of Tkachuk buried somewhere in the system. Now if you're recommending that they trade Tkachuk and tank to draft a player potentially better than Tkachuk I suppose I could agree, but failing that there's no one available to us at this time or in the coming free agent pool that would deliver what Chucky can (and building teams through free agency doesn't work).
Tkachuk delivers a high end 200 foot game while scoring at a 0.8 PPG pace over his career so far. That's fantastic. One "off" year that wasn't even that bad (0.77 PPG) isn't a sign of long-term regression in my eyes, as his off year was not isolated to him - the entire team struggled last year.