He's gotten progressively better, not worse, over the last two years, but some of the praise last year was a bit premature. He benefitted a lot by playing with Kopitar and Kempe and, unsurprisingly, he's not having the same success away from them this season. I'm sure that he'll eventually get going as the team gets going, but that's part of the issue. He still isn't a difference maker, and you hope for that from a #2-overall pick. He can certainly still get there, though. He's slowly improving. It's just happening more slowly than most of us expected.
I think the original post calling him a bust way way over the top, but as far as your response, I could not agree more.
There was a bit to much hype for a 20G, 50Pt season (playing wing) last year. He is a quality player, but you had people on our home board saying they'd take him over Jack Hughes, and that is just IMO way off base. He is still quite a ways behind the guy picked right after him, much less Jack Hughes.
I think when he fully develops, he will be a quality championship caliber 2nd line center, but when you are picking that high in the draft, the expectation has to be that you are getting a franchise 1C. The Kings will end up with a good 2C and 3C from their back to back Top 5 pick centers, and that is a problem because the brain-dead management of the Kings ended their rebuild to soon and passed up on being able to land the future 1C that would have been available in later drafts (specifically the 2023 draft). If you add a Will Smith or Fantilli to LA's rebuild, the future of the franchise down the middle is very strong, but Rob Blake and Luc Robitaille chose black hole first round exits instead of a slow accumulation of assets (this cost them Faber as well)