We're discussing a player who people are jumping the gun over. Zykov has played a total of 12 NHL games. Would he be nice to have? Yeah, any asset would at this point, but there's no guarantee if he's here that he's even sniffing the roster. It's a lot of grass is greener stuff and literally no one was complaining until they saw a tweet. I bet no one has even blinked about Cernak or McKeown in the last year or two either because after a bunch of tears after what a great NHLer McKeown was going to become, he's even a longshot at this point. My point is only that people jump right on the stuff they perceive as negative, and whether or not the trade is a 'non-issue' in hindsight, we're back to completely disregarding context.
I'm not sure how lack of people complaining about Zykov is evidence that people don't care until now. Some of us don't constantly complain about bad moves, but I've been saying since day one this was a bad move. So have K17 and others.
The context is a valuable young player who was years away was deemed expendable by management trying to go all in and make the playoffs when the core and next wave of players weren't cutting it.
The Cernak for Bishop trade was simply bad because they waited until Quick was healthy before trading for him, instead of after game 1 of the season.
McKeown for Sekera would have been palatable if they managed to extend him or trade a player like Martinez who played a similar role and function.
In CONTEXT, Lombardi spent the future to bring in older players they could not have all retained, capwise. So it was either desperation moves, poor planning, or hubris. Either way, the Kings are where they are because of these moves.
I'm not even going to address Zykov-for-Versteeg being even remotely parallel to Vilardi-for-Patches because I think even you will realize how foolish that sounds to team context as well as player value.
I still think Zykov for Versteeg is ultimately such a marginal trade to complain over, yes. There are much greater ones that can be looked up on as "mistakes" and I'll still chastise them in similar fashion because the team context--going for it--was similar. I think we're all aware that we mortgaged the future to 'win now' for years and now we're left holding the bag, I just want people to move the **** on from a minor trade for ultimately middle six wingers two and a half ****ing years ago under a completely different team context. Yes, it's a waste of an asset, but yes, it's a marginal one compared to the other things we've endured. All I'm saying is it's a mountain over a molehill over two similar players and Zykov hopes he can have the career Versteeg has had, the trade was clearly made because we needed the player everything apparently thinks Zykov is going to be right now but we needed him 3 years ago, and it is what it is.
I guess we'll see how well Zykov does this year. He has 8 points in 12 NHL games. Better than Versteeg's time with the Kings. Hell it's a better scoring pace than Toffoli or Pearson have ever put up. Would you have traded Toffoli or Pearson for Versteeg? Because the offensive potential of a young player in this age range is SORELY MISSING in this organization.
It's not about marginalizing bad moves, it's about contextualizing moves, and pretending this stuff is happening in a vacuum is very unlike you.
So is it possible I'm not pretending this is happening in a vacuum and it is actually a symptom of some very bad moves which set the team back?
Hell who would he beat out here? We have JAD and Vilardi to contend with after the Etem invite and the residual guys who should have been pressing--hell, you could argue Brodzinski is a better player based on production at various levels and you see how people here feel about him. Does this team really hurt for another bottom-six type average-skating winger?
The same Jonny Brodzinski who had his first AHL game at the age of 22, where Zykov had his first NHL game at 21 (and scored a goal)? You want to argue Brodzinski's better?
I'm not saying Zykov would be a superstar, but he would at least make a fight for a top 6 role interesting.
