I agree with most of this but I do disagree that Berube failed to put Dunn in a position to succeed. He got plenty of opportunities to play in the top 4 including almost 20 games being paired with Parayko. He was never able to do anything with those minutes and mostly looked like a liability although solid enough offensively. He has certainly taken his game to another level after a very bad first season in Seattle though.
Hard, hard disagree.
In the 2 seasons following the Cup, Dunn played just 197 minutes at 5 on 5 with Parayko. They put up pretty solid possession numbers together in offensive deployment, but Parayko was his 5th most common partner in that stretch. He played 111 minutes with Parayko in 2019/20 and 86 minutes together in 2020/21. There was definitely not a near 20 game stretch where they were partners.
His 2019/20 was pretty much the exact opposite of 'liability but solid enough offensively.' He had a positive goal differential with every D partner he played with at 5 on 5 except Faulk (-1). He had a positive expected goal differential with every partner he played with at 5 on 5 except Bortz (47.8%). All in all, we outscored the opposition 51 to 32 with him on the ice at 5 on 5 despite his point total decreasing from the previous season. His expected goals against per 60 was the 2nd lowest of his career (to date). His actual goals against per 60 was also the 2nd lowest of his career.
There is nothing that suggests he was anything close to a defensive liability in 2019/20. We dominated the opposition with him on the ice, but his time on ice per night was by far the lowest of his career (16:16 a night vs 17:32 the year before and 17:14 his rookie season).
My biggest frustration about 2019/20 is that Dunn and Petro were
extremely good together, but got limited to just 219 minutes together at 5 on 5. In those minutes, they were above 60% in every underlying metric and outscored opponents 16-7. It was sheltered usage, but they dominated the opposition and I strongly believe that they should have been given more rope together. Instead, Petro played more minutes with each of Falk, Parayko, and Gunnar than he did with Dunn.
Then Petro walked and instead of giving Dunn the chance to take over PP duties and handle an expanded role, we brought in Krug. Dunn's most frequent partner in 2020/21 was fellow left-hand shot Marco Scandella and then his 2nd most frequent partner was Bortz. Those two partners accounted for 434 of his 5 on 5 minutes. He played 85 total minutes with our #1 RD Parayko and 76 minutes with #2 RD Faulk. We got outscored 3-1 with him and Parayko together and outscored opponents 3-2 with him and Faulk together.
Both years, he finished 5th among our D in time on ice per game (6th if you include Scandella in 2019/20, which I don't think is fair since he was brought in a direct replacement to Bo).
I very much disagree that he got plenty of top 4 opportunities. He certainly didn't get an extended look partnered with Parayko.