First thing first, for the record, I loved KK as a rookie, his first season blew me away and I was certain we hit the jack pot with the pick. We all know his development kind of stalled for various reasons over the next two seasons, culminating with getting benched in the playoffs despite his pretty good offensive contribution.
That said, potential aside, one thing that makes me feel okay about KK leaving is the following : KK is *currently* really subpar at making high percentage plays. While he has good vision and positioning, he takes way too long to make decisions with the puck. This is compounded by the fact that he infamously falls down a lot. This means that a way too many plays die whenever KK touches the puck (or is about to get control of the puck).
This means that current KK is subpar at driving the play, he is subpar at puck transition from the d zone to the o zone. He is subpar at distributing the puck in an offensive setting (PP for example).
While his tool kit allows him to still get points, these short comings will most definitely get a young player to the doghouse fast. A lot of posters that are focused on potential will not like it, but coaches and GMs consider players that are consistently good at high percentage plays somewhat more valuable than players that struggle at these high percentage plays, even if they can manage to get more points. As someone who played hockey all my life, I kind of agree with this philosophy.
Obviously this wouldn't apply to a very high output offensive guy like say, Hoffman, Galchenyuk or Ryder back in the days, but even then, as we know, these kind of players can eventually wear out their welcomes when they break up too many plays with their bad decisions. On the other hand, the higher the offensive output, the higher is the chance that a player is smart with the puck, but there are still "one trick ponies" that only have amazing shots or are only good at PP puck distribution.
Hockey is a game of bounces and solid transitioning and low turnover count is crucial especially at the NHL level. Smart players that can make efficient plays despite not being the most skilled guy in the world will just add up to a smoother overall puck control for the whole team. You don't necessarily need a team full of Datsyuk, Crosby ect. to have good puck control if your bottom 9 is full of guys that are good at high percentage plays.
As for KK, can he improve this side of his game?I was getting worried myself last season. This was a part of his game that did not improve at all during his first 3 seasons. Again, when you add this to his propensity to fall over, then it gets pretty worrying in my humble opinion. I thought that the falling over thing, he could eventually fix it. But his "puck smarts" just seemed worryingly close to his ceiling. Again, this is my personal non educated guess of course. I view these things with the lenses of a someone that plays hockey... I am not a coach nor a scout!
