Well, I guess the "winning lineup" excuse was used to keep Kuz out of the lineup, why not abandon it completely to keep him out of the lineup again?
Kuz is one of Tocchet's only missteps. Karlsson is too slow and that makes him make a lot of mistakes and he's often catching up on the play. Looking at Abby I'm not sure why he's the first call-up especially since Bluegar and Suter are now healthy. Tocchet needs to have slightly lowered expectations for him. That's always been the case with offence-first players.
Before anyone says "meritocracy" or any of that crap, Tocchet has already had his darlings. Sure he changed his mind with Hoglander but it took him probably 10 games too long. Same with Joshua but Joshua was out of shape and does what nobody else on the team can. You can't tell me that Myers turning around like a supertanker on the Walker goal because he was lazy and picked up a check AT THE BLUELINE is some kind of standard for defensive play. Or Juulsen waving his stick at guys at the blueline which he often does. Or Karlsson being too slow. Or Aman not covering Thomas. Or Mikheyev quiet quitting by "being in position" but always playing soft and never taking that extra stride. Or Beauvillier being fed minutes while he was still here despite his ineptitude.
Kuz is not playing well but it's on Tocchet to get him to play better. And he has to - you saw what happened in this game - basically they had no offensive push because Boeser is no longer his super self. Kuz, even as poor as he's been this season balances out the Top-6. It pushes guys like Suter down into the bottom-6 where they actually belong. The team as a whole plays better. That Miller/Boeser line looked better with Kuz than it does with Suter, and I love Suter. But he's a 3rd line guy at best. Sure, bench Kuz if he makes dumb turnovers like last game but don't outright pull him out of the lineup.
What more people should be talking about is how Mikheyev, Garland, Kuzmenko, and Beauvillier (yes he is not on the team but he used to be) are at 21, 17, 19, and 14 points respectively. For all the hits Allvin has had, these wingers are basically a disaster. There's a reason Mikheyev was a checking line player in Toronto. I was ok with taking a flyer on him improving but now with the injury the chances of that seem slim. Of all these underperforming guys making $4M+, at least we got 39 goals out of Kuz last season so he has the highest ceiling.
Mikheyev and Lafferty are about even offensively so far. Think about that. Yeah EP had his issues for about 15 games but now he seems better but he has no wingers to work with. Now that Boeser isn't sizzling hot, basically you're pairing them with either PDG who has been just hobbling around, or Suter who ironically can't get in fast enough as F1 (which Tocchet complained about with Kuz). Basically Boeser is the only offensive wing in the top-6. That's the underlying problem here. Sure our bottom-6 is great but none of them including Lafferty should be staples on either of the top two lines.
I didn't like the first goal on Demko, I think he's keeping his edges a lot more but he leaned towards his post again which is why on the reverse angle Parayko has a yawning net to aim at. IMO a bad habit he's had for awhile, and only exacerbated last year by using the outdated "trackdown" system too much. Second goal was a laser and well placed.