I agree. Graves may not be great with the puck, but he's ok, and the coaches want him trying to make plays. Not just playing a stay at home role, because Bednar wants everyone playing on their toes to make the other team react to them, and possibly force breakdowns.
And like you say, Graves is a notch above someone like Nemeth who was more of stay at home type. The coaches tried getting him to make more plays like they do with Graves, but his puck sills were a notch below Graves.
Which is part of why he works with Makar. He knows Makar is way better than him with the puck so he won't take much puck time away from Cale, but he's also confident enough in himself to at least try to make plays and rush the puck when the opposition gives him that opportunity.
Not only does this help the team, but this helps Makar, because Graves can at least serve as some sort of distraction or decoy. The opposition knows it's not Makar carrying the puck 100% of the time from the backend, so they won't cheat as much to aggressively step up on him and take away his time and space.
When it comes down to it, no matter what your skill level, that's the mentality you want guys playing with. Someone who has the confidence to make a play. Put Graves in a lesser role and those attributes to his game will stand out even more as a positive thing, rather than a negative thing because he's playing above his capabilities.
