I hate to say this but the Isles still lack a Ladd type player on their team. Leadership, toughness, offense and taking pressure off of younger players. This combo is something that very few have. Love KO but he's not Ladd, so before saying KO is better, stats aren't always the reason for signing players. In my opinion Ladd offers much more than KO all around.
I agree with this. KO tries to be too much of a finesse player, Ladd scores 20+ and is big, he hits, brings leadership, if you can get him for less money than KO you do it.
Listen guys, the best we were the years with KO was winning ONE round. Maybe Garth is thinking, we aren't winning much with these guys, maybe it's time for some changes. Ladd may change the chemistry of this team, leadership is a very underrated character to have, if he's on the 1st line, he's better at digging out pucks in the corners than KO. He goes to the dirty areas to score. KO will get way more than he deserves.