So since the new year, Barbashev has 13 points in 31 games, which puts him on ~34 point pace for a full season, or just a little bit below what Parayko has done this season.
No other players on our team besides those two and Dunn, who were drafted in 2011 or afterwards, are scoring more 1 point every 3 games, and most are at or below 1 point every 4 games. That includes Blais, Edmundson, Jaskin, Schmaltz, Soshkinov, Sundqvist, and Thompson.
Obviously not having Fabbri here makes a difference, but... that strikes me as a problem. If we’re going to be handing the reigns over to the young guys, we need more than 15-20 points from them if we’re going to be successful.
As much as I have liked Barmstrong in the past, a good deal of that falls on his and our other scouts’ shoulders. Our WHL scouting in particular has been mostly atrocious. Our Euro scouting hasn’t been much better. The AHL situation through the last few years has affected our ability to properly develop guys, but we also need to be hitting on more mid- to late-round guys. We’ve blown early picks on William Carrier, Tommy Vannelli, Sam Kurker, Mackenzie MacEachern, Max Letunov (when Christian Dvorak was still on the board), And Rattie since 2011, and that as much as anything has contributed to where we’re at right now, imo. That’s a lot of value left on the board there, not to mention the 5 1st rounders we’ve traded since 2011 as well. That’s a lot of reinforcements that never came behind Tarasenko and Schwartz.
So, good on Barbie for finding his game after Christmas, but unless he and the others can really nail down his role here, we could still find ourselves in a pickle until Kyrou and Thomas go through their adjustments. Our drafting really needs to improve big time if we’re going to get anywhere close to a cup.