Alas, you're absolutely right.
Perron has 13 points with the Ducks.
Kunitz has 26 points all year.
Someone set me on fire.
But can he play the opposition to a draw?
And this stupid "We don't have better" argument is infuriating. How do you know? We've never even given anyone else a legit shot for more than a handful of periods.
****, if Kunitz got demoted after a period or three of **** hockey with Crosby, he'd never have seen the first line again after the Olympics.
As long as we never try anybody else and Kunitz keeps putting up mediocre numbers in a role that Andy Hilbert scored at a PPG clip in, people will keep spouting it like it's true.
It'd be interesting to see how Kunitz would produce with the TOI and opportunity our other options have, and vice-versa. Really would. Too bad that idea will never get beyond the theoretical stage.
And we saw the same thing when he was traded here last season. We'll see how long it lasts. He's a better fit for a slower team that operates off the cycle though.
He had no clue how to read off of 87/71.
Yet he still managed to produce better than Kunitz playing on his wrong side and/or in an unsuitable role. I wonder how he'd have produced if he'd had a shot at that plum #1LW spot?
But we'll never know, because we decided it was better to dismiss it out of hand based on advanced stats people used to argue that Bennett would never work with Crosby (swish), then trade him and glibly chalk up all his newfound success to a "better fit".
What people who console themselves with that thought fail to acknowledge is that
without having explored the most obvious spot for him, that can't ever be said definitively.