How is that “many quality chances” quantified? Does he year by year make his scrub C and sometimes scrub LW to score every single “quality” chance from him or something? Because otherwise he wouldn’t be a Top 10 and usually Top 5 guy in assists. That’s ridiculous. Even if you generate “few chances”, then who cares if you anyway is good enough for 50-60 assists?
Like seriously. If your evaluation is that Patty Kane is "just a good finisher, and doesn't create many quality chances" for his linemates, it's really time to put down the JFresh charts and watch some hockey.
Kane is a good finisher, but part of why he's such a good finisher is because he's such a dangerous playmaking threat. That keeps defenders and goaltenders on their toes at all times. He's an extremely well-rounded threat that creates offense in a wide variety of ways, and year after year, has grossly inflated scrub centers' offensive numbers. There's a point at which the trail of those guys becomes a pretty darn clear trend, and obviously not a coincidence.
As to the poll, i'd probably take Fiala i guess. I find him more fun to watch, and i think his skillset is probably a better fit with the Canucks situation. It's close enough between them overall, to where i think you can probably nitpick like that. But either would be fine.
