Yup although for him I think the role is more important. He probably thinks he should get 5+ million eventually so he'd need top six and PP time to get there. We were offering a lesser role and the chance to move up if he earned it
Yea I agree that the role is everything. The thing is, with the Oilers lack of winger depth at the time and Hollands extra incentive to make him work out (given all that they paid for him), the fit was certainly there for AA. He would have been competing with the likes of Kassian, Ennis, Puljujarvi and Neal (this was prior to the Kahun signing) for the open 2 winger slots in the top 6. If he doesn't have the confidence to take one of two open slots against those options, I feel bad for him. One line centered by 97 and one by 29. You have two elite centerman he had a great chance to play with.
I for one would have loved to give him another chance. He got injured in his second game here. I don't believe he ever completely recovered from that given the playoff push at the time. After time of to heel, he was the Oilers 4 best forward in the play-in series. He didn't produce offensively but he was generating lots of good chances. Thats just being snake-bitten for the time being.
I have a hard time believing that he got overly discouraged with his lack of production while injured over a small sample size. I think he genuinely saw the chance to hit the open market at a young age and severely underestimated the severity that COVID had on the contracts given out. I think a team will sign him to a 1 year, $1.5 deal and will like what they get. Realistically, his 30 goal campaign was an outlier and I think he is more likely a 30-45 pt 3rd line winger who can play up this lineup when needed.
