He's still 12th in points at even strength so it's not like he's not a play driver at even strength.
Over his entire tenure here he's been 20th in even strength points in the entire league, so if you're trying to denigrate his play by pointing out that he does even better on the PP I don't feel like that carries any particular weight. What point are you trying to make by arguing about where Miller scores more points?
Lets just forget about JT Miller the player.
We disagree somewhat as to what he is. But that's not important here and we wont get anywhere discussing him.
So what exactly is your point? It seems to be that you don't think a team can ever trade a 1st round pick if they've been bad for an extended time. I fundamentally disagree and believe that there is never a bad time to make a trade if you're getting the right value back.
Thank you for (kind of) asking.
My point is that you cannot just look at "Did player drafted with pick X become better or worse than the player pick X was traded for."
There other factors.
The biggest of all is timing.
I presume we both agree that it would make ZERO sense for Anaheim Ducks to trade a package of picks and prospects to Pittsburgh for Sidney Crosby at this TDL. Even though it is very very very likely those picks and prospects combined will not be as good as Sidney Crosby. This would be insane. Yes. Crosby is great. Yes it would make the team less bad. But it would not be a move towards contending.
Correct?
Here is my line of thinking;
With the current CBA there is a natural ebb and flow to the success of the NHL Clubs. You succeed, end up with expensive aging players, players decline, team gets worse, you get higher draft picks, get better young players and rinse and repeat.
To me the only way to operate is lean in to the ebbs and flows. You need to be bad with a purpose when you are bad and then you need to ship your futures to load up as much capital in to your rosters when you are good to try to win that cup.
To me, the Miller trade is the opposite of leaning to this ebb & flow. It forced the team to be better when they were naturally still going to be bad. This is how you end up not being quite as bad and then not being quite as good either when the rubber band of the league is pulling you back up.
Does any of this make sense to you?