The whole Panarin sucked in the playoffs thing was and is a ridiculous notion. He was PPG in the 2016 series vs St. Louis and it's hard to hate on him too much for what was a complete team meltdown last year versus Nashville.
Having said that, both players had similar even strength production the previous two seasons. Panarin was a bit higher, but not by a whole lot and he did have Kane with him.
The difference between players was supposed to only be noticeable with special teams. Panarin had a huge points advantage over Saad in that category (he was good at PP, Saad not so much). Panarin was never a PK guy for the Hawks (couldn't tell you if he gets any PK time in Columbus), but Saad was for us when he was originally here. And if anyone cares to remember, the Hawks had near record breaking numbers (the bad kind!) the first half of last season when it came to the PK. So on paper, some of (not all) the special teams advantage that Panarin had should've been mitigated by Saad helping our PK not be a tire fire.
And our PK got better. Unfortunately our PP went way, way, way down. Also unfortunate was that Saad has had his worst season in years.
The Hawks did get two more years of Saad then they would've had with Panarin, so I'm not all that heartbroken about the trade. If Panarin kept playing with Kane, he'd likely be asking for around $10m after next year and we have to try signing Schmaltz that same offseason (and DeBrincat the year after).
Not to mention that the Hawks are missing the playoffs because Crawford got a nasty concussion that has sidelined him since late December. Even if we did make the playoffs this year, unless Crow magically came back and was 100%, this team would be an easy out. At least we get a chance at Dahlin now.
