You guys just want to ***** about Haley at the expense of anything. You'll even defend a player that outside of a few flashes hasn't done **** since almost the beginning of the year.
Donskoi needs to be better. Simple as that. If he's going to get scratched it's because of his play, not in favor of Haley. Don't see why this is so hard to understand.
Nobody wants to bitch about Haley as much as you want to defend him. The one here with the biggest bias is you in favor of Haley and the proof is in the pudding when you say things like “Radil has sucked butt since January” and “Donskoi hasn’t done shit since almost the beginning of the year”.
In reality, Donskoi doesn’t have a goal in 25 games but at 5-on-5, he has 31 shots and 9 assists, he’s been on the ice for 15 goals for and 12 goals against, and the Sharks have controlled 59.65% of the high danger chances with him. That’s Donskoi’s
bad stretch and he’s still posting the kind of positive contributions that Haley can never dream of.
For Radil, he’s played in 16 games since January and he only has 2 goals and 1 assist over that time frame but he’s also got 7 shots and he’s been on the ice for 7 goals for and only 2 goals against and the Sharks control over 57% of the shot attempts and high danger chances with him. Again, that’s Radil’s
bad stretch and he’s still posting the kind of positive contributions that Haley can never dream of.
The reason people are angry about Haley playing over these guys is not because Donskoi or Radil have been fantastic or playing the best hockey of their career as of late. They are angry because Donskoi and Radil in their poor stretches are still posting greater positive contributions than Haley can ever dream of, and they also still have another level of much better play that they can reach.
Haley at least hits people. Expecting 4th liners to put up Connor McDavid numbers is pointless and unrealistic.
Haley is a career minus player with 9 goals and 30 in 240 games and horrible underlying metrics. There is a Nabokov’s 5-hole sized gap between his numbers and Connor McDavid’s and somebody like Joonas Donskoi, a career plus player with 11 goals and 34 points this season and fantastic underlying metrics, is the guy that should be demoted to the 4th line when everybody is healthy.
Haley’s physicality is useless because he doesn’t have the skating ability or the hockey IQ/positioning to use it to separate players from pucks. More often than not, he’s going to put himself out of position or take a penalty by going for a hit that isn’t there.