IMO, it seems like Abdelkader's issues are somewhere between his ears like his head's not completely in the game and/or he's trying to play too safe.
Let me preface this with the following: Should we expect him to completely live up to the long term and $4M+ AAV in his contract? Absolutely not. But could he be better/more useful than he's been in recent seasons? I would think so.
Might just be speculation and I'm not trying to make excuses for the guy, but I wonder how these factors play into Abdelkader's play the past couple of season:
Distractions/Offseason prep: In summer 2017, he got married and was also involved in Brendan Smith's wedding, possibly others. If you recall, Brendan Smith's being out of shape/disengaged for Rangers camp later that summer was blamed on his own wedding, and the myriad of others he attended. Could this have also affected Abdelkader? He then had his first kid late last summer, which delayed his arrival to training camp and no doubt occupied his attention for a bit.
The NHL's crackdown on slashing calls: Abdelkader has always been a more physical player, even sometimes to his own detriment. However, to me this past season he looked way less engaged physically. I'm surprised to see that he had more hits than the previous season, but his penalty minutes were over 50% lower, which seems to come from half as many fights (2 vs. 4) and a lot less of those of scrum related offsetting roughing minors. Since Abdelkader seemed to be a regular victim of the slashing crackdown in the early going of the past two seasons, is it possible that he went safe and dialed back some of the sandpaper in his game to negate some of those impulsive minor slashes?
It's like the guy's completely on the wrong path and lost. Maybe he's softening up his game to try to live up to his contract and the teams advertising of him as some key cog, and be the kind of player he was never going to in the first place? Or maybe it's the coaching staff that can't let go of thinking he's going to become the next Tomas Holmstrom?
While he's basically stuck on the team, both he and the coaching staff need to hit the reset button. Stop worrying about trying get him to drive offense, be a deflection board for more talented forwards or screen on the PP, and try to resurrect the grit and 2-way elements that have been disappearing from his game. Put him in the line-up as a 11-13 minute bottom 6/pk wing and get him to focus on fore/back checking, create some turnovers for more talented linemates (on the 3rd/4th line), grinding the oppositions D, and even fighting. And yes, I know Abdelkader is a terrible fighter, but that can still be effective. If he ticks off a better opposing player enough for them to agree to use him as a punching bag, that better player is absent from the ice for at least 5 minutes (as well as Abdelkader himself
).
