Tomasino finished at 23pts in 50 games with Pittsburgh. Tough to parse these kinds of numbers, really... he got 13:27 average icetime with the Pens, also including 1:31 PP time, (6 of his 11 goals were GWG with Pittsburgh which landed 2nd on the team behind Crosby).
So I don't know... it's kind of like with us before he got totally sidelined... decent-ish production for his icetime/linemates/opportunity. But not eye-popping. Not quite
forcing anybody's hand if he is also playing kind of soft and meh defensively?
He's a generically skilled-enough player to play in the NHL and get 0.5ppg. Which obviously is a lot better offensively than our grinder guys who get 0.25ppg. There is an argument that our Smith/McCarron guys getting 0.25ppg do additional things physically or defensively. I frankly don't really see it. Sure they get DEPLOYED in those situations. But also still suck at execution in those roles, right?
End of the day, I'm kind of thinking I don't really want ANY of McCarron, Smith, OR Tomasino on my team?

None of them really belong on a contending team. They are all gap-fillers. Just different kinds of gap-fillers? Tomasino is more skilled and can produce more points, but also still not really at a rate that I would lock into my top-6 on a contending team?
I should add.... it's different though when you produce numbers like Tomasino has at a young age... and there is legitimate hope of maybe developing something more out of him. There is NOTHING more coming from the other guys. But Tomasino is kind of getting towards the age now also of graduating out of hoping for something more? (That might be our fault for messing him up --- but nevertheless?

)