Two teams and at least three sets of coaches have gone through the same thing. Like I've said in the past- every play dies on his stick, for better or for worse. He has no idea how to maintain a cycle at all. If he gets it behind the net it's either a wraparound or throwing the puck into the middle and hoping for the best. If he gets pressured in a corner he will attempt a cycle, but he's never learned how to do it properly and it's a turnover nearly every time. If he gets it anywhere else he's shooting, even if it's into shinpads at the tops of the circles-- which is why you need to make sure he never gets the puck up there and he stays down low.
You should take him off of your PP before you pull your hair out. What I explained above is exactly why his flaws are completely exposed on a PP unit.
He has to be the best player on his line. I don't get what someone was quoting earlier about him still producing away from Eichel-- he didn't at all. His shots aren't quality shots more often than not. He's the type of player where you have to throw out any Corsi related metric.
Anyway, put him into a position to succeed and given his contract year status, he could still be quite useful. I'd keep him off the ice when the game is on the line though, that's when his stupid penalties come out.
Your observations regarding his shot quality and Corsi type metrics don't really match the stats. There is definitely truth to the idea that Corsi type stats aren't the be all end all and this applies to a player like Brent Burns whose Corsi is very strong but his High danger chances for % is below 50. This is because he takes a bunch of low danger shots and shot attempts and his dumbass defensive decisions lead to a bunch of high danger scoring chances against.
When it comes to Kane, it's a different case. He was by far the leader on your team in individual high danger chances for (at even strength) with 81; the next highest player was Sam Reinhart with 52. At even strength, when Kane was on the ice, the Buffalo Sabres had 50.97% of the shot attempts. They had 50.61% of the scoring chances for, and 53.68% (!) of the high danger chances for. In fact, at even strength, no Buffalo Sabre was on the ice for more high danger chances for in Buffalo's favor, even though he played about 100 less minutes than Marco Scandella and about 235 less than Rasmus Ristolainen. His individual expected goals for at even strength is near the top of the league.
Another thing, why do you think Eichel's production went up and Kane's went down as soon as Kane was taken off Eichel's line? How could Kane be dragging Eichel down if he had more points than Eichel in that time frame? Do you think his selfish style of play just led to Eichel not having as many chances to score? Do you know which game Kane went off Eichel's line?
When Eichel was without Kane, it wasn't just Corsi that went down. I get that stats like HDCF% are better for pure volume shooters but Eichel's CF% is 5% lower without Kane, FF% about 9% lower, SF% about 11% lower, SCF% 1% lower, and HDCF% about 7% lower.
One thing I noticed is that Eichel's on-ice shooting percentage without Kane is 11.11% and his on-ice shooting percentage with Kane is 6.57%. Do you think that might have something to do with why Eichel scored more once he left Kane's line? Maybe he just found his scoring touch, or maybe he just got a little more lucky, but the fact that there is a 4.5% difference in the Sabres' shooting percentage when Eichel is on the ice and Kane is/isn't tells me there is a bit of chance involved. I understand that by being a volume shooter, Kane is likely to decrease his team's on-ice shooting percentage, but considering the Kane+Eichel oiSH is 1% higher than Buffalo's without either of them, and considering that Kane without Eichel's oiSH% is 0.5% lower than Buffalo's without either player, I don't think it's Kane doing all of that. Looking at all of the on-ice shooting percentages, I think it's pretty clear that Eichel's without Kane is the outlier, even if Eichel is the most talented player on Buffalo.
At even strength, per 60 minutes, Kane with Eichel averaged 10 more shot attempts than Kane without Eichel, 13 more unblocked shot attempts, 13 more shots in goal, 2 more scoring chances, and 3 more high danger scoring chances, yet Eichel without Kane did average 0.3 more goals for per 60 mins. Do you really think the 0.3 more goals is a bigger indicator of future results than the far greater difference in every other offensive stat? Do you really think Eichel is better without Kane than he was with him?
