- Dec 10, 2012
- 40,600
- 20,528
I think a quick look at most top 6 players' utilization at ES will show that they played most of their minutes with other top 6 players.
I could see it happening though, since Hayton is 6'1" and seemingly good at face-offs. 2 things much more important than offensive production.
Hayton is really only productive when you put him between Keller and Schmaltz. And it works because between Hayton and Cooley, Cooley is not the one you want playing the tough matchups right now. Hayton obviously isn't as good as Cooley but he's more experienced and has a more well rounded NHL style game.
But it's interesting that people will talk about how Rossi is only productive playing with other top six players, ignoring the fact that guys like Hayton are only productive with top six players, to an even lesser degree than Rossi, and even Peterka was most productive with Tage Thompson, and his top linemates feature him, Alex Tuch, Dylan Cozens.
I mean, it should go without saying that players produce more when playing with other good players, and produce less when playing with worse players. But for some reason, it's used as a criticism of Rossi more than I've noticed for most others. Ultimately, the reason he's even with those players in the first place is because he earned that spot with his play. We've seen what it looks like when Rossi doesn't earn that spot, got sent back to Iowa two years ago, wasn't playing as much with Kaprizov and Boldy last season. So it's not like they just stuck him there for no reason.
As well, someone acquiring Rossi probably isn't doing so to play him in the bottom six with grinders. I mean they could but I wouldn't recommend that. He's going to play with other good players wherever he ends up.
Anyway, as for Hayton, he's definitely more of a 3C type, but he doesn't necessarily look out of place with top six players. I think that's pretty valuable, and I could see it working well with adding Yurov to the team next year. Hayton can help shelter Yurov, and then when Yurov does take off, it's no problem to move Hayton down to the third line.