Well, the first question should be why a guy was playing meaningless games last year which put him in danger of missing training camp and put him in position to look this bad. Completely dumb, but I'll leave that topic alone for now.
Sticking with your original line of thinking when there is so much more information isn't what I would describe as 'silly'. Sure, last year people preferred Mikheyev to Garland. Since then we've seen Mikheyev suffer a brutal injury and then come back looking like a fairly limited player. His best asset was his speed and there's no guarantee he's that guy again. Meanwhile Garland has been one of the best forwards on the team and has been extremely effective dating back to late last year when he first started playing with Joshua.
The other information we've learned is that this team is a playoff team. The team is trying to compete this year and there is no doubt who is the more effective player right now and that has to factor in way more than banking on what Mikheyev might show next year or the year after.
The last piece of information is that this team is suddenly flush with depth players who need raises. Blueger is a more important of a player than Mikheyev is. Same could be argued for Lafferty & Joshua - or they are at least comparable. Those three players might combine for 7 million bucks on new contracts which would roughly be the same as Mikheyev and two other 4th liners. Who would you rather have?
All that being said - I don't think it matters. The sentiment out there was that the Canucks overpaid for Mikheyev as a free agent as since then his value has only gotten worse. I don't see why a team would take him right now.
And even though this post is all negative, like I said I doubt he's going anywhere so I'm going to try to be optimistic with Mikheyev. I think he's a smart player that at his best has shown he can be a perfectly fine complementary winger in our top six. If he can be even the guy he was last year then that would be a huge boost to this team down the stretch.
i guess i am seeing this in terms of upside
we are currently at bar none the best possible garland there ever will or could be. two months ago and 75% would have shot him and his play-killing spinning into oblivion out of a cannon.
mikheyev just has a higher upside. more versatile player, can do more things on more different lines, and is very possibly at his lowest possible level. but i agree, his play of late is frustrating to watch.
even within this single season, i would guess that by the end of the rs mikheyev will be the easily better and more valuable player.
nut i guess we also differ greatly in our estimation of garland’s impact. this season and last, i haven’t seen anything from him worth anything until very very recently.