Go look at his game log. See what he really is. You want to talk totals, but when you put those totals in context, his 20 goal season is actually a negative. He had 18 goals halfway through the season. So to end with only 20 was a huge disappointment. I get why he's being paid what he is, I just don't agree with it because I don't think he's a 20 goal per season guy. He's closer to what we saw last year, and he's been that guy for most of his time here, aside from one 4 month stretch. No matter what you say, nothing changes that fact. He scored 18 goals in his first half season, and has at 15 for the remaining year and a half. That's a huge red flag. Even worse when you factor in the amount of PP toi he got during that time as well.
He actually only had 14 goals through the half way point (41 games).
That 4 month stretch through January was almost exactly 2/3 of the season (53 games). Compressed schedule.
He also had 4 goals in 12 post season appearances at the end of the year, including 3 in the Montreal series.
His 5 on 5 goal scoring numbers are almost identical to the previous season. Where they take a big dip is the special teams. Going from 6 PP goals to 1 PP goal. He only shot 6% on the PP last year. That is generally where you see a players percentage increase. By comparison he was 10-11% 5 on 5 each of the last two seasons with a very large sample size (12 goals in that situation last year, 1 more than 20+ goal scorer Eriksson).
I was looking through the individual 5 on 5 G/60 and he actually ranks solidly in the 30-40 range among RW in the league, depending on on strict you want to sort it (positions are not always accurate either). Expanding beyond just the Bruins and Eriksson/Soderberg/Krejci he also ranks ahead of guys like Giroux, Ryan, Voracek, Sharp etc. There's a tier of about 15 true goal scorers at at the top and a slew of secondary guys just above and below the Smith range. Not suggesting he's better than any of those players, but he's certainly not inept.
