Sure, hold him accountable. Cut down on his ham sandwich allowance. There was never a realistic scenario in which Patrick wasn't a key part of this team this season and presumably, for many seasons to come, so really, I'm more concerned about Frost not having a spot to play. This cap space that went to Hayes would have been more efficiently spent on improving other parts of the team, for instance, adding a Spurgeon instead of Braun or Niskanen, or adding a winger who can help Patrick.
Let us not forget that Patrick was playing fine until Haktard split up him and Lindblom. And yes Patrick's slump went even longer than Lindblom's but he looked downright dominant half the time over the second half of the year.
Channeling inner Striker ... we saw Couturier misused by Berube in his second season. It didn't mean that Couturier was terrible or couldn't/wouldn't improve.
As of today, Frost has a spot to play. We have an open top 9 slot not filled.
As you know, I was all for Spurgeon. But that cost is #11 in a hypothetical world...because in the real world, Fenton has said he wants to re-sign him.
Add a winger???? Well...Hayes CAN play wing if both Frost and Patrick show they are dominant. At ES we had:
3 LW produce at top 6 level or above
3 RW produce at top 6 level or above
1 C produce at top 6 level or above
There is 100% a REASON we added a C. And he isn't just a 50 point C with only offense. Good defensively. Good on the PK. Hell a threat to add scoring to our PK...as I said before....he has more SH points the last 3 years than the entire Flyers team had goals SH.
Patrick was not misused though. He had Voracek as his RW winger most of the year. Hell, he had Giroux as his RW for a stretch too. Patrick HAS looked dominant...at times. We need him to be that year round. Not just a 10 game stretch. As a rookie, he paced at a 53 point pace over a 30 game stretch to end the year. He needed to build on that this past year, and failed to do it. No injury excuses in the offseason to deal with. He came to camp...and myself and others...including Ghosts Beer...said how he looked bad in pre-season. Well that carried over to the actual season.
11 points in the first 37 games up to Jan 13th....24 point pace
19 points in the next 25 games....62 point pace
1 point in his last 9 games to end the year...9 point pace
So....what Patrick are we getting next year? We all want the dominant one that paced for 62 points, but then he once again fell on his face. We all WANT that guy. Most believe he can and WILL be that guy at some point. But you also can't blame people for not being confident that "that guy" is arriving this coming year. Especially when he has not done much either year to start the season:
Year 1: 9 points in 40 games to start the year
Year 2: 11 points in 37 games to start the year
That's an ALARMING thing to look at....20 points in 77 games...a 21 point pace....for your #2C playing with skilled guys. His hernia surgery explained year one. Nothing explains year 2.
Maybe if our top 3 scorers were younger, we could afford to wait. But if you wait and it takes a few more years, all you are doing is replacing what we have now....and not even that because no one we have is expected to post Giroux like numbers. So now we have Hayes, who is already what we expect 90% of Patrick to be in his prime. And if Patrick doesn't make that big jump up this year, we are ok.....except then you have to question what he is because then it will be 3 years of sample size. And if he does rise up, then we are in a great situation.
I honestly think taking the pressure off him, and having him get easier matchups, that he can have a great year. He has no excuse not to.
And as a side note, I need to get some freakin work done today...lol. Later.
