Strome had played mostly on the 3rd line I believe. His promotion is recent.
I was just joking in that post but nonetheless, Strome is a huge upgrade.
That trade was idiotoc..but not a big deal in the grand scheme
But Strome scored 50 w/ Tavares on the wing. There is no doubt he tops Kassian's production in the same place. Kass scored like 20 points w/ the Sedins
Trading Strome without giving him time on the wing was a mistake. Chia pencilled him into a specific role..and that's all he got. Chia misused the player, no question about it
Rangers got the player and are playing him to succeed. Just another Oil failure on the books
Strome played nearly 60 games at wing before being moved to centre, much of that time with quality centres as I've already shown on this page.
Ryan Strome played only 120 of 950 5v5 minutes with John Tavares in his 50 point season, and that season was proven to be an abberation by the next 4. Even his numbers as Ranger only pace him to 37 points (3 more than he had as an Oiler last year). Gagner for example is on a 36 point pace as an Oiler while clearly impacting games better than Strome did in the same amount of games as an Oiler this year.
The Rangers aren't utilizing the player well. They're utilizing a middling player as a key piece and getting borderline 3line production out of him. The Rangers are one of only 7 teams lowlier than the Oilers in the NHL standings. Kassian's recent production may be a career outlier, but he IS producing at a level with Connor McDavid in 2019 that exceeds any stretch of Strome's career - even the 50 point season - and it's not likely Strome would have matched it.
More importantly, you can't be a top heavy team with 21M allocated to two players and spend 3M on a borderline 3line producer who needs top-six linemates and minutes to consistently hit a 30 point threshold.
The great failures of the Oilers w/ Ryan Strome are not in trading him. The Oilers failures come from trading a 5x 20 goal scorer for him, and then giving him a second year on his deal as an RFA. Downgrading in talent and bogging down the cap simultaneously.