Komarov is at this moment one of our least productive players, despite getting lots of minutes. He is one of our worst players at getting the puck out of the zone with control, or at all. He is one of our least effective players at getting the puck in the opposition zone, though he is good at retrieving it on dump-ins. He is one of our least involved players in any kind of offense. He is getting consistent ice time at PP despite having nothing to show for it. He is the worst on the team in terms of puck possession, with any kind of adjustment. He does play against tough opposition consistently, but is among the worst performers in the league among those who play that kind of minutes. He's a defensive specialist, but defensive metrics are in shambles. Now this is largely line-driven when a unit has stayed together as much as they have, but Marleau and Kadri (in particular) provides value otherwise. Komarov has nothing else to lean back on when it comes to even strength.
He does play well on the PK. But any kind of rational evaluation of his abilities right now pegs him as a PK specialist. That's not someone you want to rely on to play top line minutes. That's someone you want to hide on the fourth line.
This has nothing to do with Kadri, or scapegoating in general. It's just an honest evaluation of where Komarov's game is at right now. He's been one of my favorite players over his years here. That's irrelevant to the topic. I want us to adapt to his natural decline so that he can play out his last year with dignity, instead of being thrown out to fail.