77 pts while playing with Backlund, and still developing, leads me to believe that 104 pts isn't all on Johnny.
I am not that big of a fan of Tkachuk mostly because I think his antics do just as much if not more to get the Flames off their game, and the whole "pulls the team into the war" thing - in an 82 game series, your team that has 'gone to war' is going to be pretty worn out and beat up.
Other than those 2 complaints, he is baiscally a perfect player. Yeah, he doesn't skate fast, but he is still a very good forechecker somehow, and an extremely effective player in every zone with the metrics to back it up. Whether he is top 10 or top 20 it doesn't matter - Tkachuk is an ELITE franchise level player by any metric, and complaining that he has a zit on his nose is smells a lot more like someone's feelings are hurt more than anything else.
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