If Gostisbehere had a similar season coming off an injury with another team I would say the samething. He's a pretty good player who projects to be something pretty special right now.
I would rate Gostibehere ahead of Provorov & Sanheim right now because his current trajectory is pretty high & there's more assurance of him reaching it than those two at the moment. He was a high level player at the lower levels & one year in the NHL so far he was one too.
The study isn't conclusive enough. It treats every player as an equal based off a suffering the injury. There's really no other context to it than that.
What other context do you need? It tracked every player with an ACL injury over a span of five years and noted worse performance and shorter careers after the injury. That doesn't mean Ghost is doomed, but again, it is something that I would consider in acquiring a player with that injury. I'm not saying it makes him untradeable. I'm not saying we need to get rid of him. I'm not saying he will be finished next year. I'm simply saying that a serious injury is something to consider when acquiring a player, especially one in which you'd be giving up a big asset. But I guess it isn't. ACL injuries do not matter. Noted.
What team Ghost is on makes no difference. He played a full season of 80+ pro games after his injury and did so at an extremely high level.
If McDavid was available would his injury reduce his value?
McDavid's injury was a lot less serious than Ghost's. And I think you are taking this "reduced value" line a little too far. We have three very high end prospects/young NHLer. All very close in value all very close in potential. One of them suffered a serious injury that caused him to miss an entire year and at least one study of NHL players coming back from that injury concluded that there is worse performance and shorter careers following the return. I rank that player slightly behind Sanheim. You don't. That's fine. And you don't care about prior injuries (or at least prior ACL injuries). That's fine. I do.