Fair.
The whole reason his line was called the 2nd line all season is because he's built like and elite 2nd liner and PP monster, in a way. I agree that he's not the "build around guy." That was "supposed to be" okay since we had "bona fide 1st line players Chris and Mika" to build around. It's just that we never ended up building a top line around those two (plus a huge slump of a season from Mika).
If we're right back to 10-16-13 next season, I'm pretty okay with that. Troch and Laf are the guys being built around, and Panarin's the one that fits THEM. Call them the 1st line. We just need to have a viable 2nd line threat to withstand a series that's a bad matchup for Panarin. Oh, and a healthy, competent D all around. LOL
There are three other "free up some money" moves to look at before creating such a huge hole. We've already been missing a top 6 W for 4 years now. For however flawed Panarin is as a #1 guy, at being "that dude," 100+ points is 100+ points. His plus side is already mitigating a big deficit elsewhere.
Yeah I don't buy any of the bolded - Look at their pay checks. Up until recently he carried the 2nd highest cap hit in the league (he's now dropped all the way to 4th.) They aren't paying him all of that money to just blend in.
I never got caught up in who played on what line or how they were labeled (mostly because its pretty useless at the end of the day) and always assumed that Kreider-Zibaenejad got called the "1st line" because they've been here the longest and played together the longest. Anyone who watched this team knew what line was the best one on the team. Maybe Florida agreed with everyone else though seeing as how Barkov was matched up against them instead of Panarin. Now that doesn't absolve them either (especially Zibanejad who had a horrendous series) but if you (not specifically you) are willing to extend that excuse to Panarin, then it should apply to those guys even more so.
I think the other issue with this is that he was completely outplayed by both of his line mates despite being the big money star player on that line - That is completely independent of anyone else on the team.
Now I agree that the defense needs to be fixed first and that there are guys who need to get the boot ahead of him (namely Lindgren and Trouba) but the excuse train needs to be derailed for him. I've heard it all for him - Oh he was having a tough time going into the playoffs, he was hurt before they started, his line mates weren't any good, etc. None of those applied this year.
100+points are 100+ points, but I would expect someone who is capable of putting up 100+ points to to carry over most of their RS production to the PS. As a Ranger he has a PPG of 1.31 in the RS (comes out to a 108 point pace)
In the playoffs? .76 PPG or a 62 point pace.
Find me another player who drops off THAT drastically.
I thought this was his best postseason compared to the previous two years but it still leaves so much to be desired.
I'm a Panarin fan and defender but I'd be lying if I said he didn't look like he dropped a tier or two as player in the playoffs.
Yeah this was easily his best run in a Ranger uniform.
It also happened to be a run where he was the worst player on his line.