COVID seasons and injuries both contributed to that.
It’s easier to score on a bottom feeder that isn’t focused on two-way play like Carolina is.
I don’t know what Slaf’s offensive ceiling is either. I really like the kid during his draft year though, I’m more defending Svech than dissing Slaf. (And I hate the Canes lol.)
There's also a difference between actual development and situation change.
Actual development is sustainable, situation change is not
The biggest examples of this are linemates and PP time. And this is true for both Svechnikov and Slafkovsky
As a rookie, Svech got 2 minutes a night on PP2. This led to 5 total power play points.
The next year, he went up to 3 minutes a night of PP1 time. This led to 20 total power play points.
But he wasn't going to go up to PP1+, and 4, and then 5, and then 6 minutes. His PP ice time stagnated and so did his PP production.
Same with Slaf. 1 minute a night on PP2 last year, this year 3 minutes a night on PP1. 12 point jump there. But there's a limit to how much ice time you can get in these situations, and it isn't "real" growth.
Same with linemates. Slaf went from line 3 to line 1 with Caufielf and Suzuki. He's not going to get bumped up to line 1++ with McDavid and MacKinnon next year. Artificial growth that has reached it's limit
And for Svech, as a rookie his most common linemates were Wallmark (who), Martinook, Teuvo, and McGinn
As a 2nd year his most common linemates were Aho, Staal, Teuvo, and Foegele. Big upgrade going to Sebastian Aho and that type of usage. But there's no super line 1 to move further up to. So the "growth" stagnated, because it wasn't real