The reality is that too many plays die on Newhook's stick (or off of his stick when he loses the puck, misses the net entirely, etc.)
6 points in the last 7 games, I think, yet it still feels so much like he's just really fast, with nothing happening for it.
I think that impression comes from so many plays that Peter out. If he had the skills to go with the speed, he'd probably be a 100-point producer.
Extremely frustrating to watch.
I don't see things getting better with third line minutes.
In the bottom-6, it will just be frustrating a different way, because he doesn't play physical hockey to be a forechecking grinder and is too bad defensively to be part of a checking line.
What would be his role in the bottom-6?
He may have paced for 50-points over parts of a season, but he's still never had more than 34 points in a season at the NHL level, for whatever reason and is a strictly negative player since joining the Habs.
Projections are only good if you are continually improving (like with Suzuki), or if you have a track record to show you can get there.
Newhook just isn't good enough, IMO, to be part of our top-9 if we expect to become a contender. It's that that he's awful per se, but it would clearly be a question of satisfying ourselves with what is already on the team, rather than going forward to look for something better, whether that is to come from within the system, or outside the organization.
Standards for bottom-6 players should be as high as they are for top-6 players whom we seem to love to bash.
