this year while Guentzel is out, probably. I figure he's behind at least Sid, Geno, Horny, Jake, and probably now Rust for powerplay time from forwards. And maybe a 2nd D depending on who is hurt. It's very hard to predict the kind of powerplay production to expect from a guy who isn't on the healthy top powerplay.
Since he has broken out, he's averaged 40 ES points a year. That's what I'd be using to judge what he does for us. He should finish somewhere in the ballpark of 40 ES points. And even then, he's only broken 40 ES points twice. I think 35-40 ES points and 5-10 powerplay points is a fair prediction for him. There's obviously room to do better, but those would be in line with what he's typically done.
Yah. Right now he's 6th PP forward with everyone healthy behind Sid, Geno, Rust, Horny, Jake. Guentzel replaces Sid/Geno. Its unknown who'd replace Rust, the answer is possibly even Schultz/Letang. Nobody cares who replaces Horny as our PP is fools' gold without him and we're better off taking a penalty right away to turn it into 4v4. Zucker making his way onto a non-broken PP1 is plausible for now because Jake's down, but who knows.
And of course, while our PP2 does see time on paper, its crap time in effect. We've all seen the opportunities it gets, and it rarely had 5 players on it you actually want on a PP. There's a reason why since 16-17, our 6th highest forward for PP points each season has 5 points, 4 points and 3 points. PP2 is where talent goes to die. It is possible to break double figures there (Bonino did it once) but you've got to have pretty much everything break right for you, get lucky on having more talent than usual (Streit) and be good at PP... which Zucker isn't actually all that much.
I guess my hope would be he can shift his ES/5v5 scoring from a 35-45 range to a 40-50 range, maybe look for 5 PP points. But getting into the bottom end of the new range would still be solid.
