Watching a few random high-light plays from Nyquist and Tatar doesn't impress me much. .
Yeah. That's your problem. You're not watching the games.
Tatar has been more than adequate to replace guys like Cleary, Abby, Miller, Eaves, Tootoo. He's faster, better hands, he's not slouch on defense. Your "size" argument exists only in the vacuum of height and weight numbers. It doesn't exist when you look at how strong they are on their skates and on the puck. Tatar is as strong on the puck as any of those players I mentioned.
This is patently false. They're a clear upgrade over Miller/Cleary if you care about scoring goals.
Scoring goals? What about speed? Cleary is slow as hell. What about hockey sense? Cleary has none. Tatar makes things happen even if he's not scoring. Cleary has killed every line he's moved to. Tatar is a superior player to Cleary in every single way expect the number next to his height stat. And only idiots would use that as a reason to keep Cleary in over Tatar when our best players are small guys like Datsyuk, Zetterberg.
Who want's to develop players like the Islanders and Oilers? I sure don't... and neither do Holland and brass, and Babcock. That's why they get paid the big bucks and you're on a random message forum typing posts from your lazyboy expressing "how you feel" with no merit.
Except your argument of "They get paid big money to do this job" applies to every single person in management for every single team. Are you saying that every GM in the league is beyond blame by the fans? They have more qualifications, experience than 99% of the fanbase, and they get paid the money. And your argument that this makes them beyond criticism by anyone on the internet is just stupid. We are not people without any knowledge of hockey. We've all been watching and/or playing for decades. A lot of us even watch the prospects play. A better comparison would be an experienced nurse or paralegal pointing out something that the doctor or lawyer has overlooked. Happens all the time.
You should try arguing the merits, instead of just saying "They're completely beyond criticism. Period."
The merits are not on your side. Nyquist, and especially Tatar, have excelled at every level. Tatar has been superb in the AHL for a good 2-3 years now. He put up a good number of points while he was up with the Wings. More than any of our other grinders
and in less games. That includes Abby who was playing top6 minutes.
But you don't want to talk about that. Because Babcock and Holland are "brilliant," "geniuses" and cannot be criticized. Screw the facts! You can't criticize them!
(That genius and brilliance by the way, has been unable to progress past the second round for three years in a row and got trounced by the Preds in only 5 games last year. If only other teams were able to have such genius at their disposal.)
