Maybe he does rebound. Many do not rebound. Some do, but many do not. He has certainly been hampered by injury, but multiple injuries season over season is not a reason to be optimistic for the future. The idea that personal issues have affected his play is reasonable and understandable. If that is a significant factor then that is a serious problem that has no timeline for resolution. I know that some people carry their grief for decades, not everyone, but some do.
He get points because of his linemates. He gets points because he's on a PP that would be just as effective without him. He can't retrieve the puck, he consistently loses board battles. That is what I see. I also see glimmers of hope that maybe he is improving, but I'm a long way from being a believer. Don't get me wrong, I want this guy to succeed, I just don't like the majority of what I see.
Boeser is obviously far less of a problem than OEL or Myers. The most optimistic posts on OEL I see hope that he can be better than guys making 1M. Those are the optimistic takes. Myers sucks and the posts reflect that, but nobody really has any hope for improvement beyond potentially becoming a non-liability on the ice. Nobody believes it's even possible for Myers to live up to his price, we're resigned to believing his top end is as a player who doesn't actively hurt the team. I don't think I've seen any posts defending either player or suggesting they are more than what we're currently looking at. Brock on the other hand is seen as either: a worthy reclamation, a guy who needs new scenery or a turd with enough leftover shine that we don't have to pay too much to jettison.
Brock doesn't get more flack, people just think that of all our bad contracts he is the most moveable. It's more painful when he continues to disappoint because there isn't the complete hopeless apathy that OEL and Myers have surrounding them.
Brock is a top six forward no doubt because he can't play in the bottom six. He has regressed and it's very concerning. There are concerns about his conditioning. Conditioning is a function of work-ethic and if work-ethic is a problem then that is doubly concerning. It's easy to say that conditioning can be fixed because it can be fixed. All you need is work-ethic, but if you don't have that then what? I can totally see a scenario where the franchise focus on demanding a higher standard gets teamwide buyin and Brock sees the light. I just need to see it first.
I re-watched it to make sure I saw what I saw. Brock skates up the ice uncontested at an unremarkable pace and does a button hook to buy time. The only way to screw it up is to either fall down or botch the pass. It's an unremarkable play made remarkable because he did botch the pass but Miller recovered. He didn't draw 2 defenders. There was the receiving d-man and the equally sluggish backchecker who split off to stand in front of the net. Brock had all the time in the world to put a pass on the tape and if the recipient of that pass had not been an elite scorer it would have been a broken play.
My original point stands that this play illustrates Brock's reliance on others to produce.
Ironically I largely agree with your sentiment that many posters here are reflexively critical of anything that isn't trading away everything and tanking for the draft. I think that there are other ways to build a team besides 1st overall picks. Good pro-scouting, a focus on player development, NCAA free agents are all ignored by the tank crowd. We literally added a likely 40 goal scorer for nothing but it's largely irrelevant because we didn't draft him. The tankists believe that players win championships not teams. I believe you need to be serious about winning to attract winners to your organization. It's a top down total philosophy that is uncompromising.
Pittsburgh got lucky. It wasn't some brilliant strategy, they were on the verge of folding as a franchise so they sucked and fluked into generational talents. After ownership stabilized they managed to build a team around those players.
Chicago had terrible ownership so they sucked. If you suck you get high picks. Old man Wirtz or however you spell it died and the new leadership built a team around the fortunate picks.
Edmonton had terrible ownership so they sucked. They got lucky and drafted 1st overall repeatedly but the shitty ownership persisted. They have nothing to show for it. They drafted 2 of the best players in the world but they are still looking for players instead of a team.
I could go on but I'm getting tired. The point is that if you can't support the players you have whether you drafted them, signed them as FA or traded for them then you're going to be dissapointed.