Now this is just not true at all. You don't score 20 goals/45 points in the NHL these days without having some kind of decent talent. Could we put Martinook or Foegele in the top 6 and expect an automatic 45 points? of course not. Hell we barely got that out of Lindholm at the same time Rask was around and look what Lindy is doing right now.
Rask never logged more than 2nd line minutes and his power play points were roughly 30% of his even strength points which is pretty much the norm. To say he "always sucked" is the same as saying Eric Staal "always sucked." It's completely revisionst and totally false.
Nobody's saying he was ever a superstar either obviously. But he had something and now that something is gone, whatever it was.
foegele? no. he has the worst case of tunnel vission i've ever seen and miserable puck handling. he'll probably top out at 10 assists for his career.
martinook, though? i could see it. he had 25 points without any powerplay time last year with his best linemate being svechnikov for like a third of the season or so (could be wrong). if you were to have played him with skinner, and on the top powerplay unit for most of the season, i could see him hitting 45.
rask's ice time is irrelevant when you look at his linemates. because skinner had zero chemistry with the staals and couldn't be trusted to play against tough competition, he wound up playing with rask a ton. rask got a bunch of cheap points just by being on the ice with him. say what you want about skinner's overall play but he is insanely good at scoring even strength goals. if you were put martinook with skinner for a full season and played him on the top powerplay unit, you really think that 45 points would be out of reach? i don't.
obviously you have to have some talent to score 45 points regardless of the situation. but rask was placed in an incredibly beneficial situation here. imagine if skinner could have played in the top six, and rask wound up with gerbe or nestrasil or nordstrom on his line instead? or if the hurricanes had a powerplay qbing defenseman so that rask didn't wind up there getting cheap assists for making ten foot passes to faulk. how much money do you think he's making now? at his prime he probably would have been a 25-30 point player on a properly constructed team.
rask being an absolutely miserable skater is nothing new. it hasn't gotten worse. i don't think he got a big contract and then quit. i think he got a big contract and the team around him improved shortly thereafter and forced him into a lesser role, and then traded him to a team where he's in an even worse situation as far as picking up cheap points go.
rask would be a great pick up for seattle i think. he could put up 40-45 meaningless points and maybe con another team into giving him a new big contract.
