I did not even address the statement that Gaudreau was considered a better player than Panarin before this season.
What I addressed is that you posted a motherf***ing fantasy rankings list from NHL dot com to support this statement. That is f***ing ridiculous. Fantasy rankings are
vastly different from best player rankings. They do not even pretend to be the same thing. What you did here is about as accurate as finding as a Tumblr blog ranking NHL players by their looks, and then concluding that Alex Wennberg is the most attractive UFA on the market.
If you're "not going to waste your time" doing research to support your statement or to double check whether or not it is correct, you probably shouldn't make it in the first place. I was curious, so I did some research to determine whether or not your statement is true, and here is what I found in just a few minutes.
Last summer, HFBoards ranked Artemi Panarin 8th among wingers and Johnny Gaudreau 9th.
Last summer, NHL Network ranked Johnny Gaudreau 7th among wingers and Artemi Panarin 8th.
Last summer, TSN ranked Johnny Gaudreau 7th among wingers and Artemi Panarin 8th.
It is quite clear that last summer, the perception of these two as all-around hockey players - not as fantasy outputs - was neck and neck.
Next time, do more than a quick Google search before making statements like this. You'd actually waste less time in the long run, because you wouldn't get yourself into an argument where you're clearly wrong.