Helping is the key word here as there were 5 other guys on the ice who had something to do with that. Elite play is out-scoring elite opposition. Not just shutting down a guy which is what old fashioned 3rd line checkers did. You can just keep Boyd Gordon around if you just want nothing to happen for 15 minutes a night.
It's going to be a long season listening to this as spawn said and I'll keep my comments to RNH's actual performance for the most part. If we didn't have Drai then RNH would be an OK 2C behind McDavid. But we do have Drai and RNH is over-paid and unsuited (timid, non-physical, poor faceoffs etc) for a 3C role. He's not a "shut down" center and Drai/McDavid make all of his actual skills redundant. He'll be traded for a young Maroon replacement on LW next summer is my guess. We will get an older vet from the Vermette tree who fits into our cap structure to play 3C for us next season and finally close the book on the the disastrous rebuild 1.0 failure led by Lowe, Tambo and MacT.
So you're saying RNH isn't an elite player?
I don't think even the hard core fan boys would say that. Maybe, fan boys will be fan boys... but I doubt it.
I think where the discrepancy lies is one side sees 1st OA, 6 million dollars and they're disappointed and the other side sees a talented hockey player that contributes to the team success. Even last year with his low numbers he helped us win.
I dare you to find a similar C who faced similar QoC while putting up similar #'s, who makes less than 5 million per year (on a recent contract). I grant that at 6mil he is slightly overpaid for his production. However for what he brings to the rink I doubt we could replace him for much less.
Drai at C is unproven, having Nuge in the lineup gives us options and that is huge. The 3C arguement is almost irrelevant because with Drai at c and Nuge at c, we essentially have 2 2nd lines, what remains to be seen is whether Drai spends much time at C and who sees the QoC.
Overall my opinion is that Nuge is slightly overpaid for where he's at, but really not much. If he develops at All (still pretty young ya know) or salaries rise at all, we're sitting pretty at C. You can't put a price tag on having three good C on your team, especially when it allows you to overload the 1st line by putting Drai at wing.
That said, as I mentioned in another post, he certainly has room for improvement. What grinds my gears is the constant "he's not performing like a 1OA.. 6 million dollars!! ..move him and get someone else" narrative that runs on here. He might be underperforming based on draft and salary, but he is a very important part of our team.