My question I ask myself when watching Domi is this... Am I attributing better play to him because of his play in the past/I like him as a player? Because I have been keeping an eye on him recently and his play and notice some things more. He definitely is forcing plays a LOT these days. As much as people like to talk about Duclair with the turnovers, watch Domi. Every game he has had some big ones that also go the other way. In fact he is tied with Goligoski for most giveaways on the team with 22. Duke has 3 and for reference sake Keller has 18. Goligoski certainly gets (deserved) criticism for some of his giveaways but I rarely hear it about Domi.
Having giveaways doesn't mean you are a bad player. Usually, giveaways just means you have the puck a lot. But in this case, I think it means that Domi is forcing it. I just also don't get how Duke always gets complaints about turnovers and Domi does not when the numbers are what they are. Also takeaways, Domi has 7 and Duke has 3. So it's not as if Duke never hustles to get a takeaway. PS, the "defensive expert" Rieder also has 3 takeaways this year (4 giveaways). Yes there is a bunch of stuff that goes into whether a player is good defensively or not. Just using some easy numbers to make the point.
To be clear, I am not saying Domi is worse than Duke or etc. I just think Duclair gets an unfair rep in general and he deserves the ice time with good players to produce. Also noticed some of those double standards with our staff that I just wanted to point out. When I have watched Duke and the rest of the team play, he doesn't appear to be lazy to me. At least not any more so than most of the other players on the ice. Especially not to the point where he has to get benched time and time again and put on the lower lines. Just doesn't make a ton of sense to me when he is benched and other players aren't.
Also making the point that I think Domi needs to take a minute to breathe and get his offensive game back. I think he's been forcing too much and he's in his own head. We shall see though.
At the end of the day though, I just hope he keeps up the good play. He's got the ability to finish and this team needs that badly.
Ps I was able to watch this game so I finally got to see them win the whole game! Was an intense finish to the game and their goalie helped the Yotes out a bit. But it's about time some luck went to the Yotes so I won't complain.