Coinflip? Laich is a much better two way center. The pk was good when Laich was healthy. This year it was horrible and got better when Laich came back for a bit. Remember Chimera-Laich-Ward line being a great shutdown line?
I swear everyone remembers a different Laich than what he is. He lead the team in a lot of stats in 11-12. He is better than anyone here will admit.
Yes, I would rather have him at 3C. But Grabovski will be a whipping boy once here.
Being better on the PK doesn't automatically mean being better defensively at even strength, and Laich doesn't offer much there. He's not quick, he's not smart positionally, he's not strong along the boards/on the puck, the only thing he has going for him is that he has borderline top 6 hockey skills and he's committed to playing safe and he tries. I'm not sure how good Grabovski is on the PK but aside from the Hunter stretch our PKs haven't been much to write home about, and Hunter heavily relied on guys like Beagle, Brouwer and Hendricks. A huge amount of being good on the PK is coaching + having a guy who can win faceoffs unless you really want a PK that consistently generates scoring chances, which is something else entirely. If we have a pair like Jeff Halpern and Mason Raymond and a coach that emphasized pressuring the hell out of the points we could have one of the best PKs in the league for a bargain basement price. Hell that was largely the case under Hunter.
Laich is a 10 ESG player who has benefitted from being slotted as the de facto top 6 grit guy on some of the best offensive regular season teams since the lockout simply because he was the best of limited options. He makes a good 4.5 million dollar 3C but guys like Kelly and pre eye injury Malhotra can be argued to be better at that role because they're much more specialized on things like faceoffs and ES defense/forechecking, which is really what championship teams want their 3rd lines to do. If your 3C isn't an ace on faceoff the line loses a ton of effectiveness since they're automatically playing against more skilled players who have the puck. And Chimera Laich Ward was a great line for all of 20 games before they stopped going with it. Cost a pretty penny too, compared to similarly effective 3rd lines for half the price.
Grabovski may become a whipping boy but we win more games with him at 2C than with Laich, simple as that.
Laich is not a bad player, but he's being paid borderline 1st line money and doesn't have a defined role on the team.
