The real answer is it's a combination of everything being said in this thread.
- Kylington wasn't this player previously. He showed flashes but still wasn't consistent and was not really using his skillset to drive or create offense. The advanced stats support this as that JFresh chart indicates.
- That being said even though he wasn't a fully finished product he still deserved more opportunities than he received the last season. Going from 48 games in 19-20 to playing in 8 games in 20-21 was ridiculous. He could have played more in a rotation with Valimaki (49 games) and Nesterov (38 games) for sure.
- It was great on the player to really take his development seriously this offseason. He came into the season in better shape than he's ever been (3rd in fitness testing) and really forced the team to give him more of a shot. Part of this is opportunity, but a big part of this was Kylington really stepping up his game from the first day of pre-season.
- And good on Sutter for actually putting him in a position to have this success in a pairing with Tanev for the most part, even if he did default to the veteran in Zadorov initially.
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