Ottawa's usage of Zetterlund really shows his limitations. On a shitty team like the Sharks, he was able to play in a top 6 role. On a decent team, he is ideally not one of your top 6 forwards. So, that leaves the 3rd line next. Which I know a lot of us have said that he is a solid 3rd line winger, but is he really? He is bad defensively and is not trusted at all to be a PKer. Which are the 2 most important things you want from a third liner. You want them to be your primary PKers, so once that is done, the top 2 lines can hop on. Zetterlund does not offer that. So, he can't play on the 3rd line either.
As a result, he is stuck being a sub 10 minute a game 4th liner on Ottawa. We may miss his 20 or so goals a year now, but when we are a decent or better team, he would ideally not be a major part of it. I was upset about the trade at first, but honestly its been easy to move on.