Believe it or not, the Pens are not infallible despite a wealth of professional experience. They
signed Jack Johnson Fans aren't always right, but executives aren't immune from getting married to certain types of players. ZAR fits that mold.
The process of signing an NHL UFA and a NCCA UFA are in no ways similar and cannot be compared.
JJ had a body of work and was presumably scouted or observed over the course of NHL seasons by the NHL level scouting staff. It was at that level that a determination was made that he could fit into the Pens’ system.
From what I saw of his play, he may not have been a great signing but he wasn’t as bad of a signing as you iconoclastic yinzers made him out to be. His salary ($3.25MM AAV) is less than what he made in Columbus and in line with what his experience merited. The only point you might have is the length of the contract which isn’t guaranteed anyway.
An NCAA player undergoes a different process of evaluation in which Hockley Ops/Player Development play a much greater role. A determination is made based upon developmental potential and not a body of work.
That said, I wish that all of my years of playing, coaching, being a USHL scout and USAHockey evaluator in my District enabled me to take three players and determine that one with 6 games, 5min TOI, 2 assists and routinely ragdolled would be a better contributor than a player with 43 games, 5th in hits on the team and with nearly .5 point a game. We won’t even consider the fact that they had half of one season and a third of another on the same team and one clearly outplayed the other.
I also wish that my eye were such that I could trick my brain into believing that one player, e.g. Blueger, was even a better skater - let alone faster skater; you do know that there is a difference? - than another e.g. ZAR when the evidence clearly points the other way.
Go watch the OT game winning goal in Game 1 v Islanders. Who is that coming off the bench, catching up to the play and breaking up the 2 on 1 that most certainly was about to result in a goal because the Defenseman played the shooter and not the pass. Who is that that wearing #46 who caught up to two of the fastest Islanders and managed to take Eberle out of the play? He did this despite coming back from a hip injury that had kept him from skating.
And, as I said, you should have done a better job with that last word. You are using one determinant and one determinant alone in re Bennett and Aston-Reese and that is points. Yet you ignore that same determinant when comparing ZAR to Johnson or Blueger.
As for hypotheticals. There was a lot of buzz around ZAR after he led Northeastern to the HockeyEast Championship his Junior year. You should read SB Nation. They evaluate NCAA free agents every year. There are also similar articles on USCHO.