If you look at the TOI at the end of the game it does look more like what was listed as the 3rd line at the start of the game was actually played as the 2nd line.
Have people really been lamenting that about YZerman's drafting?
Having a guy good for 40 goals and 90 points in a full season that isn't pivotal is a pretty nice luxury. And Raymond is still a question mark, who plays a non-premium position.
Playing 14 minutes a night, when he was 18 and as a center, playing on the third line. Not on the top line, as a winger getting nearly 19 minutes a night on the top line. Based on total TOI for their first seasons, Raymond is within 100 minutes of the total Stamkos played in his first full season, after only 59 games.
So you're telling us that Raymond will have the same amount of points as Stamkos (when he reaches the same amount of TOI) playing against first liners instead of third liners? Good to know.
Raymond is a really nice piece, but the thing about scoring wingers is that they need scoring centers. A good center can elevate middling wingers, but a bad center kills the whole line.
They were outliers with an insanely deep team, an all-time great coach, and Patrick Kane in his prime was a generational talent. He didn't need a center. Detroit isn't deep, has a bad coach, and has no developed generational talents.
Raymond is playing with the best players that Detroit has, which are much better than the players that Stamkos is playing with. He's also getting top PP time. It really doesn't go both ways, because there're a lot of counterfactuals that are at play here. Like Stamkos being groomed to be a top line center, being over a year younger, playing lower in the lineup, with less PP time, with worse players, and at a time the league was scoring 10% less points. We've seen young offensive wingers explode in their first full season only to regress to good but not elite pieces before. Remember the Nyquist explosion where he scored 28 goals and 48 points in 57 games?
Ok fair enough, but now you're going in a different direction with the Nyquist example. But ok: I've been pounding Raymond's drum for a long time so you're talking to the wrong person if you think I'll compare Ray to another winger who might regress after their first season. To me Raymond is gonna be the complete opposite. And I go with eyes rather than stats here, so you can disagree if you want but Raymond has always been underrated around here and he'll keep being underrated until he shows he can be that first line elite 2-way winger. I have zero doubt that he'll achieve that. It's ok to be pessimistic though, I'm pessimistic about certain players and prospects, it's just opinions, but I've always been very high on both Seider and Raymond and they've only constantly proved themselves, I have no reason to start doubting them now.
He's the type that will be defined if he can take the real next steps, which is to be able to sustain his production consistently AND be able to adjust to other teams now planning for him and building matchups against him. The latter is why Nyquist took a step back.
It was it the point to compare us to the Hawks.
The difference is Nyquist was 2nd or 4th rounder, while Raymond is 4th overall.
Nyquist was a 4th rounder for a reason. He put ok numbers entering his prime surrounded with much better players. Raymond is a 19 years old kid on a very bad team.
