First, in my books, NO NHL player is crap, garbage, dumb or whatever you and your kind spend your time name calling them. To me, only frustrated teenagers in their parent's basement would have that kind of language describing a NHL player. I know, haters gonna hate me even more but I seriously couldn't care less. I have played against Burrows, I have seen Georges Laraque in retirement skate circles against pretty good amateur hockey players, and played against/with many players who played in the NCAA/BCHL/QMJHL, etc. To reach the NHL you need to be damn good at hockey.
Now, there's a pretty big difference between "good" and "not garbage". The problem I have with some posters is they are going far with the hyperbole and are disrespecting those players. So I was not arguing about them being "good" but rather not "crap/garbage/etc"
1) Zack Smith : he is the kind of player that will struggle on a struggling team. He's a pretty adequate 3rd line forward (or could be a very good 4th line forward). He had some pretty decent seasons (garbage players don't score 25 goals in the NHL). He usually has a production pace between 0.30 and 0.45 PPG. His CF% is also usually positive (over 50%), he's usually very good on face-offs and on the penalty kill while being strong on the puck. His defensive stats are also quite decent (outside of last year where his xGA/60 was far over his usual rates). He had a very underwhelming season last year but it was just a reflection of the team he was playing for. When the team had better seasons, strangely Smith also had better seasons. In 2014-15, he had a really poor year but he dealt with injuries and played only 37 Games. Since we are in a massive youth movement and Smith is over 30 y/o now, I have no problem moving him and save salary by doing so but I just have no idea where you got that irrational hate for Zack Smith.
2) Johnny Oduya : I dunno if you follow the SC playoffs but Oduya was a key player for the Hawks when they won their last Cup in 2015, which is just 2 years before him signing in Ottawa. He was still a fine player in 2016-17 but was already 34 y/o so yeah you could expect him to start slowing down. He had injuries in 2016-17 which affected one of his best tools (skating) but sometimes, players rebound after an injury-plagued season. Problem with Oduya in Ottawa was his usage. He should have been played strictly on the 3rd pair with easier assignments but he was asked too much here, basically to replace Methot. He was clearly not put in a position to succeed playing often with EK (54.93% at EV) and on the first PK. Without Methot and a pretty sub-par Karlsson defensively, and with Phaneuf slowing down even more, the defense was in really bad shape last year. There was basically no chance that Oduya would succeed given what he was asked to do.
3) Alex Burrows : A player that had 2 strikes against him in Ottawa because of a "dislikeable" trade by Dorion. Gave a prospect none of us (or the vast majority) were ready to part with for Burrows, and also gave him an undesired 2 years extension. Despite that, he had a very good start with the team and excellent production (6 goals, 11 pts in 20 games is very good for a bottom-6 forward) down the stretch with some clutch goals and plays. Also, he had a decent showing in the playoffs but then he got injured. If he had been just a rental and we gave up let's say a 4th round pick to acquire him, then it would have even been perceived as a good move. But he was already 36 y/o and was losing one step away from becoming ineffective. Maybe his last injury was the last straw and I was hoping (because he still had 2 years at 2.5) that he could still play but with time passing, he was becoming more and more ineffective to the level of an overpaid depth forward.
Just because I have a different language, it doesn't mean that I am not being honest about my talent evaluation skills...
