I do watch him play, and he's not washed. His legs are still there. He's still very good along the boards and strong defensively. Mangiapane, Raddyish, and Duhaime all have significantly higher xGF%s w/ Eller than w/o him. His WoWY charts paint the picture of a guy who makes his teammates better. I am not saying he can't be upgraded or that he's a perfect 3C but he's far from washed and he's not nearly the bum he's being made out to be.
Definitely agree. Eller isn't a liability at all. He's just not the perfect fit for the wing talent we have; not the guy that can help leverage the offensive promise of his wings. That's never been his game, so we knew what we were getting into with him. It's certainly not the end of the world if he stays put.
But you said in the trade thread that you hope the people that wanted to make a trade are happy with this lackluster one, and I don't think that's quite fair. If GMCP had posted a poll here proposing the "Beauvillier for our 2025 2nd" trade, I don't think it would have gotten ANY votes, especially not if one of the options was "No, let's hold on to that pick and see if it can help us land someone better."
And while this does sting for sure, Beauvillier IS a good player. Certainly not who I was looking for, but the dude works hard, has aptitude in both zones, and has demonstrated an NHL level he could absolutely get back to.
When you watch him closely he is so def with his stick and positioning. he often ends up with the puck on his stick which is good. He doesn’t have breakaway speed so he always gets caught.
100%, and it would be 100% positive if he didn't lack offensive vision. He's never had that bang-bang capability. He does the work to get the puck on his stick frequently, but the space around him closes at that point, and he's not creative enough to turn those moments into offense. So he gets trapped or moves the puck to safe space. Doesn't routinely make BAD plays, and he's strong on the boards so getting trapped isn't terrible, but he lacks the vision to make the good/great play.
In those postseason, you want each line coming onto the ice to hit like a punch. Scoring line, shutdown line -- definitive impact. Eller's line is typically just a PAUSE button. They don't score much, and they don't get scored on much. It's a wash. It won't hurt us versus teams that aren't deep and don't roll 4 lines, but that's rare in the playoffs...
