Easy there, big fella, I'm just saying he has been a non-factor in the last 3 playoff runs he's played in. I'm not saying he's the sole reason any of his teams lost, but it's pretty clear he wasn't a reason that they won anything, either (hence my position that even if he was healthy, he wouldn't have done anything to put the Wings over the top against Chicago).
You said that depth scoring wins championships, and he didn't provide it. Sorry if you wish he put up better numbers, but it just didn't happen. To some extent, it doesn't matter what team a guy's on in the playoffs- a depth scoring forward kinda needs to score to help his team win. Which he was unable to do.
It's not cherry picking to take the most recent playoff results for an aging player, because those are obviously the most relevant- cherry picking would be to claim that he's the same exact player 3 years ago in the PO's when he put up 15 pts. The dude's 36 years old now, not 26- it's not like it's realistic to chalk up 3 ineffective post-seasons to a slump and expect him to rediscover his game and help a team for the next 10 years. He is what he is at this point in his career, he won't be getting any better, and he's easily replaceable.
Your logic has no reason to it, it's cretinous.
In 2012 playoffs, Datsyuk got injured during a 70 game season,
played 5 games in the playoffs to score an whopping 3 points. He gets paid $6.7 million.
Samuelsson, who is by no means on Datsyuk's level of play, was out all regular season (well, played a sporadic 4 games throughout the year),
played 5 playoff games and scored 2 points, 1 less point than the a player making $6.7 per year.
While I agree Datsyuk is a much better player than Samuelsson when he isn't scoring, he is also getting paid over twice as much. The point is, even an elite player can't overcome rust/injury in the playoffs, how can you expect Samuelsson?
There's no question if Samuelsson would have gotten in 30-35 games in, time to gel, and was in game shape and healthy for the playoffs, he would have produced. How many 1 goal games did Detroit lose to Chicago? The answer is
two; games 6 and game 7. I am confident that Samuelsson would have increased the teams' chances to win the series if he scored at least 1 point in either of those games.
Would he have? Who knows. But the facts remain the same. He is a known and proven clutch goal scorer in the playoffs.
Unlike you, I am sure both Ken Holland and Mike Babcock would have been tickled pink had Samuelsson been in game shape and healthy for the playoffs. Because instead of bickering about which low caliber player KH should sign this summer, that likely won't improve the team that much anyhow, maybe instead we would be celebrating a WCF appearance... and possibly a SCF appearance.
Buying out Samuelsson makes absolutely no sense at all. Only a handful of arm-chair GMs thinks it does, but in reality; real world NHL hockey, it doesn't make any sense... it's reckless and irresponsible and doesn't help the DRWs except losing a depth goal scorer while still losing some cap space in the buyout.