Romanov is maturing. He's never going to be an offensive dynamo, but he's been using his very good first step a lot more this season. His skating makes him a threat carrying the puck, and he's finally started to realize that. And he's taking more runs from the point, again realizing he's quick enough to get back.
The fun part of the deal is that if he was Canadian instead of Russian, he’d be getting substantially more spotlight. He gets almost no recognition for his play, especially his skating and underutilized shot.
There's a definite upside there, he was tried on the PP on arrival, but I think he was just too raw at that point, but IMO he could be a #2 PP QB at some point. I think he concentrated on his D in part just to stay in the lineup and might rediscover his offense as time passes.
We don’t need him on the PP because of Dobson/Pulock. I think he’ll top out as an Ekholm type. He’s great in his role and will be a top4 for the foreseeable future. I don’t think it’s so much that he’s untouchable, more that it doesn’t make any sense for us to trade him in a retool as he’s the type of player we would be targeting.
Even with a full rebuild, I think you keep him and Dobson for the back end to have something to hammer minutes for. Build around guys like them, Barzal and Horvat. Ideally outside of Horvat, the others are in that 24-26 window.
