I've refuted this perspective multiple times in the past, so I'm not gonna go into much detail here. But McMichael did plenty with the very limited ice time and opportunities he got. I'm not just talking his advanced metrics (which were outstanding), but just even his raw points/60, which were better than Oshie and Backstrom's. For a player with heavily limited minutes, often playing out of position and without skilled linemates, and zero powerplay time - he did excellent.
Further still - Lavi has repeatedly demonstrated that there's no linkage between the level of CMM's play and how much ice time he receives. Look at CMM's best pre-season game this year, where he was scoring and unquestionably the best Capitals forward, and he had the least even-strength ice time of any Capitals forward who finished the game. Look at last year, where in a game in which Carl Hagelin scored against his own team and CMM scored a goal in the correct net, Hagelin still saw more ice time than CMM down the stretch. It doesn't matter how well CMM does or doesn't play, so far Lavi has refused to utilize him beyond the bare minimum level.
Also, if you're gonna pick on "anointed ones" as an example that the fanbase is setting expectations out of line with reality, you picked some pretty poor examples there. Vrana has 22G and 32P in 39GP since joining Detroit. Injuries have limited his total time, but he's more than lived up to the hype while on the ice. Meanwhile, Burakovsky just won his second Stanley Cup and is off to a point/game start in Seattle.
