Its not about production for me. Hes a guy that used to be wildly inconsistent with his effort level. He obviously cared but he would just give up on plays or late in games, would be mopey and not do his line changes etc. That changed with Tocchet where he became an EVERY GAME, EVERY SHIFT reliable guy. This year hes been back to moping and giving up at random times, especially late in games and that cant continue. Even if he produces he cant be doing that, no excuses.
Today he was looking mostly like himself from last season, saw him actually take defensive assignments in the third, got in lanes etc. Been hoping that him giving up on plays had to do with getting gassed and not mentality etc, so maybe we are about to see him back now that his conditioning caught up? One can hope.
But it didn't change with Tocchet, as we are seeing the same pattern play out. Beast mode for a season, then a rather disengaged, while still productive half season, and back to beast mode.
A lot of people seem to misremember the 21-22 season. Which in many ways, was Millers best. The Boudreau year wasn't some pond hockey team like it was early 22-23. That was a team that won a lot of close games. They relied on goaltending making big saves, but had a great counter, and were overall stingy. JT wasn't some cherry picker, he was great all around. Didn't matter that his linemates, or the team as a whole wasn't scoring. He had a McDavidesque highlight reel package that year, and a lot of them came against good players/teams, at key moments. Every win mattered, as they stayed in race until pretty deep in the season.
I get it's frustrating at times watching him play so lax, but its always been a give and take. If he was any more consistently great, he'd be knocking on the Mackinnon and Drai tier. He was brought in relatively cheap, as a supplement to the young core, and ended up being our best forward, and even player some years.
