You guys realize he started the game as a 2nd/3rd line center? 6 of 8 faceoffs lost, plenty of key o-zone starts to generate/keep momentum squandered. It then quickly devolved into a fire drill in our own zone, with the center passing off his responsibilities in coverage and in the breakout. Some of the routes AA took on zone exits... it's beyond me how a player can look that amateurish and out place from the birds eye this far into their career. His whole night at center, he supported the defense in zone and helped win a key puck once.
He rendered his entire line unusable to the point that literally halfway through the game his much pined for audition at center was already scrapped. Bertuzzi and Vanek played like crap too, but they aren't (trying to be) centers, and that makes a huge difference in what is and isn't excusable.
I don't see how getting justifiably benched as a teams 24 y.o. top 9 center in the first game of the season is on par with some wingers being behind the play. Maybe it's one game, and it'll help him figure things out moving forward. But it was a demonstrably bad game, and I'm running out of angles to look at in hopes that there's a watershed moment where he starts improving his overall effectiveness in a direct and sustainable way.(especially at center)
Hopefully it was just being overwhelmed by the task of the position change, and he can look more comfortable/natural wherever he's slotted in this weekend. I don't have a bias against AAs player or personality type, I was really hoping that the opportunity at center was the moment that he would breakthrough into a reliable factor for our teams future. It's just one game, but I don't see any reason to not acknowledge that to some degree, game 1 was a hit to the list of reasons to be optimistic about his future.