He is 100% over-performing based on his contract. We are getting a deal on his contributions weighed against his salary. I can't imagine anyone arguing against this point.
That being said, he's clearly looking like a placeholder out there with Karlsson on the 1st pairing. I'm willing to give him another dozen games or so with EK to either prove that he can play there before starting to wonder about a change on that pairing - willing to wait because he's new to Boucher's system and maybe the gaffes in his game are due to the steep learning curve of both playing with a unique defenceman like EK and/or the steep learning curve of The System - but if Christmas rolls around and we're seeing the same play out of Oduya, then maybe we need to seriously consider giving the role to Claesson, or someone else.
Basically - I'm fine with trying out new players and giving extended auditions - 25/30 games or so - but what we need to be worried about is a Chris Kelly scenario, where the player gets a full 82 games in the spot, and Boucher deciding on the eve of the playoffs to finally move him out of that role, leaving us in a spot where we don't trust the guy who has been there all season, and the guy replacing him hasn't played in that spot all year.
Right now, we're trying things. I'm fine with that. I just want to be sure that if it becomes apparent by January that the chemistry in the EK-Oduya pairing isn't improving, or Oduya isn't catching up to the system by then, that we have the foresight to cut bait in time so that we are 100% sure of our pairings for the playoffs.