- it's not strictly about 'earning it' – it's about what line construction yields the best on-ice team
- other guys he's competing with haven't necessarily 'earned it' more than he has and/or mean less to the franchise moving forward
i get that people have the sour memories of his sophomore struggles in their heads, but this is also a guy who put up 29 even strength points as an 18-year-old. for reference, kirill marchenko's even strength pace last year (at 22) would've yielded 24 points over a full 82-game season, and that's with an unsustainably high shooting percentage.
meanwhile, the other options:
- yegor chinakhov hasn't even skated this preseason.
- justin danforth – who i love btw – has scored at a 27-point full-season pace over what has essentially been about 2/3rds of a full season played over the past two seasons.
- emil bemstrom is another guy who caught a lot of flack from the fans last year, but ended up having the best season of his career so far (seriously) while scoring at a 24 point 82-game pace at even strength.
- eric robinson is a career fourth liner who is good enough in that role but is also a pending UFA who likely won't be here next year.
- liam foudy is just diet eric robinson.
- mathieu olivier exceeded everyone's expectations last year en route to a gangbusters 15-point season.
- dmitry voronkov is probably the second best player i've listed here but should be looked at as an upgrade over olivier/robinson to start.
sillinger has accomplished more at the NHL level already and inarguably has the higher ceiling moving forward and if he gets a third line spot you probably have a 10-7-17 fourth line which is probably the best one you can assemble out of the rest of that group anyway.
that's not to say that there aren't hypothetical benefits to giving him the 1C spot in cleveland, because there are, but it's not like he's somehow bringing less to the table as a potential third line forward on opening night than the alternatives are, either – especially given that the other two guys on that line this year will be established, productive NHL players.
he was a borderline top-10 pick entering his D+3 season, who had a prolonged slump on a bad team while being the second youngest full-time player in the league and being given significantly worse linemates than he had the season before.
what i'm saying is that there are far more reasons to give him a chance to stick than there are to give emil bemstrom a fifth (!) swing at making the big club.
