Let’s change the
wording then. Do you think
Andrew Copp is an average 2nd line player? Tarasenko?
And
you just disproved yourself by pointing out Skinner was scratched. 2nd line players don’t get scratched for performance. Hes been terrible
@PainForShane
Nah man. "Mario Lemieux was at least average... oh uhh... actually he's great! It's just a difference in wording." That's what you just did, no one would do that. The words 'at least average' and the word 'great' generally are used to refer to completely different tiers of player.
Meanwhile you still don't understand the points I've made, the main one was fully explained a couple of posts up. At this point I think the misunderstanding is probably intentional on your end, but I'm not 100% sure.
On the off chance it's not... well, the main claim I've made (and have been making this whole time), is that Edmonton is deep re: forwards. One example of this relates to how they handled Jeff Skinner. More specifically, if you have an underperforming 30 goal player like Jeff Skinner, if you have enough good forwards, you don't need to force ice time on him, you can even healthy scratch him without completely decimating your ability to score goals. Prior to the season, I'm sure Jeff Skinner was projected as a probable top 6, but Skinner's ice time has been low since November or so, Podkolzin's not terrible and has basically taken his spot. That's an
example of depth, not the other way around.
***
Re: Andrew Copp, not that this to do with anything, but his value depends on deployment. Daily Faceoff shows him this morning skating between Kane and Debrincat, that makes sense to me, have a defensively good center between two gifted offensive guys, maybe they can cheat a little on offense but either way they can just focus on scoring. A lot of lines are built this way (Steve Rucchin long term between Kariya and Selanne for instance), the idea makes sense. And Copp's salary is around 5.5m (incl a modified no trade) which is about standard for a decent 2nd liner and obviously way too much for a player who's generally considered to be bottom six. Which Copp definitely is not.
And idk how you feel about JFresh (I don't have a strong opinion), but as of 2022 JFresh liked Copp as a top 6 guy. All that together, I think Copp is probably about an average second liner depending how he's used.