A little funny you make excuses for Kulemin but Clarkson gets beat down.
Kulemin had one good season himself with plenty of opportunities to get back to his one good season. He crapped the bed every time.
He's a good player, heck I'd take him over Clarkson for the salaries, but let's not pretend like he wasn't given plenty of chances to get back to his former self. He was a black hole offensively and was very lucky to have achieved a 30 goal season.
It is pretty easy to defend him. Let's look at the stats.
Since Carlyle took the reins, he was not given opportunities. He had 34.9% in offensive starts and 46.9% in defensive starts. This would indicate his intensive defensive responsibilities, No one is expecting him to be a 30 goal sniper. He got 23 points in 48 games in a shortened season (which can prorate to 37-40 points in a full season) where he had 35.5% in offensive starts and 44.3% in defensive starts. In the shortened season, he had the 3rd highest corsi stats in both rel qoc and normal qoc. Last season, Kulemin had 3rd highest qoc corsi and 6th highest qoc relative corsi.
Pk: JAY MCCLEMENT NIKOLAI KULEMIN DION PHANEUF CARL GUNNARSSON 14.6% - Taken from leftwing lock
Oh hey, he's on the first pk unit.
tl;dr?: Kulemin had tough defensive assignments and if his minutes consist of mostly PK and 3rd-line, he will not have desirable minutes in the attacking zone.
When he was on the line with Kadri and Lupul, he looked decent. He definitely was not a black hole on that line. He can skate, protect the puck, and unlike Clarkson, can stand on his skates without falling over. That, with his defensive acumen would have complemented the 2nd line more. I think he is capable of hitting 40 points. He obviously needs more minutes on the pp and fewer defensive assignments to accomplish that.
I beat Clarkson down because he is not worth 5.25mil and I rather have the guy who complements the 2nd line. Clarkson would need to net 40-45 points to justify that cap hit and it is not likely he does. For 5.25mil, a smart GM should be able to find a guy that can yield 37-40 points with an above-average defensive game on the 2nd line. 5.25mil allocated for an offensive 2nd line player when the team already has one is not prudent - We have Lupul for that. Also, by signing Clarkson to that contract, it ties up money that could have been spent on Kulemin or used to keep Grabovski who is good at faceoffs and the PK.