Ghost is my favorite player. He hasn't been good this year. I think he's a clear example of a guy who's been worse than his standard possession metrics, although he's had a lot of bad luck.
I'm concerned. I'm concerned he'll never be good Ghost again. Also I'm concerned he might get traded.
Someone tell me it'll be alright.
OK, easy. I'm not concerned at all and here's why:
To start, when an entire team (except for literally like 3 or 4 players) is seriously underachieving, it's a safe guess to say that the problem isn't with the individuals and that when the situation improves, so will their play. Judging anyone on this team based only on this season would be horribly foolish.
And let's look at the context for his points:
First off, the PP is f***ed and that's been a large part of his production in his career. In his previous 2 years, he's
2nd in defensemen PP points. With
4 less points and
28 less games played than Burns, who's #1.
Then at 5v5, in addition to the team overall severely underachieving, last year he played with Provorov and the top line for most of the year... and now this year he's played with Folin, Hagg, and MacDonald for most of the time. You better believe that will hurt his production because 1) they're black holes, and 2) they make it much harder to play defense and move the puck.
Look at the usage...
With Provorov - 206 minutes (about 30% of the time)
With Hagg, Folin, Gudas, and MacDonald - 450+ minutes (about 70% of the time)