Not true for a couple of reasons.
Pettersson, when he's on his game, is like a young Datsyuk in the way he plays both ways, can bury any look he gets, and has incredible vision and hands for passing and stickhandling in a phone booth.
Those aren't skills that just disappear at 25 and never return.
I can't say for sure what's happening and against the Sharks it was really hard to watch how static he was and how often he was hiding from the puck by being the net front presence which he should almost never be. He should want to be the quarterback (or co-quarterback when out there with Hughes). But he looks ginger and slow. It feels like there has to be an injury there, or he's completely bereft of confidence, or battling mental health or etc etc.
But no part of me thinks that we just signed the Loui Eriksson contract X 2. And if you're honest with yourselves, 90% of you don't think so either.
You're just really upset and disappointed to be seeing our young superstar look so mentally defeated and unhappy and I'm not disagreeing with that part, it f***ing sucks.
My girlfriend is just learning about hockey and she was noting that he looked like his skating was laboured and he never moved his feet with the puck after I mentioned how much he's struggling.
So it's obvious that something is wrong, and it's hard to watch. But this isn't an 8 year problem and he's an 8 year solution.
Huberdeau's struggles can be taken more seriously because he moved from a system that worked incredibly well for his preferred style of creating space and then using his superlative vision and 360 degree passing to hit trailing defense man in space to either score themselves or make another pass to someone wide open.
For the record, I don't think Huberdeau is done either. I'm sure I have laughed in a couple of trade proposal threads or whatever, but I think he'll figure it out and be a 75-80 point guy, but will never look worth 10.5 until Calgary will retain like 2.5 on him and he'll go somewhere and thrive. Unless he figures it out there. He's too smart and talented not to.
And Dubois just doesn't seem to love the game. And this isn't a one time thing, this is him leaving a poor taste in the mouths of 3 fan bases.
If Petey is on his 4th team doing this, we can talk about it in 10 years.
Cozens is being killed in that market too, but you're right on him.
They're apparently playing Byram with Power and the two are being ventilated.
I haven't watched a Sabres game yet this year, so I don't know if it's just not working due to similar player builds and limited veteran poise, or if one is cratering the other or what.
But I'm not moving Petey, personally.
