Pretty good in-depth article about his sophomore slump here:
TL;DR Before I get deeper into the article, I’d like to lay out some of the points as a sort of quick hit before I get into the deeper proof.
pocketcbj.substack.com
One immediate course of action suggested is to get Fantilli a puck-hounding playmaking winger, like Brindley was at Michigan. He specifically names Evangelista (Trotz does seem intent on burning the Predators to the ground) and Nyquist (
@majormajor).
I knew it was really bad, but wow:
By pretty much all underlying analytics measures I can find, Adam Fantilli is the worst offensive play driver in the league. That isn’t to say the worst offensive player but when he’s on the ice the Blue Jackets generate the least offensive volume and danger in the league relative to his environment.
The early Mackinnon comparison works for me but at this point only on the superficial level. Fantilli's game is more of a wreck than anything I remember from Mackinnon. We're got a bigger problem.
Once again, I'd love to know what the coaches conversation is about this. We have the Fantilli to the wing option, which I've been arguing for, but there's more options than that (like bringing in a strong veteran type). They can't possibly be thinking that we just keep going like this, can they? There's no way they're willing to do this with Fantilli
all year?
It did just come to mind that Jenner's return might have Fantilli go to wing. I think they're too stuck in their ways with Voronkov but Jenner is a more respected center. But the way they've been operating, my guess is that Fantilli stays at center and Sillinger goes to wing (the way it was a month ago). They seem really committed to the head on stone wall trick, it must work eventually.