There’s so much that pisses me off most about the whole we lost JVR and Bozak thing.
1. If last year we said we’d trade JVR and Bozak for Tavares we would have gotten laughed at, now for some reason those two together are close to him?
2. It’s not just us getting Tavares, it’s also us being able to give Johnsson/Kapanen more ice time. A Kapanen who gets 3rd line minutes all season might put up 40 points playing with Kadri.
3. JVR and Bozak on a line together meant we needed to shelter them non stop. It put us in a pickle if the Matthews or Kadri lines weren’t playing so well.
Let me start by saying I'll miss Bozak and JVR. They were loyal players during a dark time and IMO deserved to be the ones kept for some long awaited success.
That said, it's complete laziness or bias to try and compare them against Tavares. JT scored more goals than JVR in a career year and had ~15 less points than both of them combine on a worse team playing tougher matchups. Also, even though his production is compared to JVR, he replaces Bozak on the ice.
So, you have a player to scored more goals than JVR, replaces Bozak on the ice, scored nearly as many points as both of them on a worse team playing against top lines.
This doesn't even take into consideration the defensive improvement or the fact that Johnsson or Kapanen will be replacing Bozaks production. Then there's the job of trying to figure out how much Tavares improves his linemates.
