1. Yes - it is absolutely dishonest to sit there and say the guy was close to 40 points two seasons in a row. I literally did the f***ing math and showed you were wrong. You really want to double down on this stuff? You want to disprove math or something?
I guess Kakko is immune to math. He transcends numbers (that his supporters lie about or miscalculate)!
2. 40 points is a number he's hit once in his career. He was way off that pace this year and the year before, he was nearly 20% off that pace (no matter how much you want to purposefully try and distort the literal math that disagrees with you). You'll sit there and claim that "Oh, 6 points isn't that far off from 40!" all while ignoring that it's just about 20% off that pace. A significant figure for a guy who doesn't put up points.
Come on indeed. Learn how math works. I shouldn't have had to do a follow-up post. Your entire post should've been an admission you were wrong, but I digress.
3. Your final paragraph wasn't geared towards me, but I'll address that as well. How is Kakko not a black hole? He provides no offense. He averages a pace UNDER 32 points per season. That's disgustingly bad for someone that is not a defensive specialist. And moving onto his defense . . .
His defense is as mid as can possibly be (once again, I provided the stats to show that). Outside observers all basically think the guy can hold onto the puck and that's about it. What is he doing out there that isn't a black hole offensively? Who is he making better?
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Basically, you had to distort stats to even try and paint a picture of Kakko not being complete ass. When the math disagreed with you, you just post some random shit about career averages when I was addressing your literal take about the last 3 seasons. Like, you're being so intellectually dishonest here it's not even funny. If you don't realize that, I have no clue what to tell you. But this is quite dishonest. Your doubling down actually makes me think this is just pure bad faith.
Before last season, when he battled injury, Kakko as a 20 and 21 year old averaged 0.42 and 0.49 pts per game. That's a 34 and 40 pt pace over 82 games. It's not unreasonable to assume that a 22 year old player is going to exceed those numbers EVER SO F*KING SLIGHTLY for the majority of his most productive seasons which will come in his mid and late 20s, like every other player.
Look, this is a dumb argument. 40 pts isn't an unreasonable expectation for Kakko. I get being too high on him and expecting him to be what we thought, but being like "Uh, he aint even a 40 pt guy for his career, bet on it!" is wildly underrating what he brings. Forget 40 pts, I'll go so far as to say I think Kakko eventually becomes a 50-60 pt guy who gets the odd Selke vote here and there.
His possession numbers for his career are pretty damn good. Every line he's on, drives possession. These are facts, dude. He's a very good defensive player, also a fact. Kakko has everything you want in a middle six forward. But he's not a finisher in front of the net, so it has severely limited his offensive potential.
These aren't controversial views, man. Kakko is not remotely close to a bad player. He's incredibly useful. Just because he's not Matthew freaking Tkachuk doesn't mean he sucks and has no value. If the Rangers make him available, at his likely AAV of 2.5-3m, teams will be lined up to make him their third line RW.
You tell me he's garbage and then tell me he has value, but then go on to tell me we should trade him for some other teams underwhelming player...I dont know why he has to be traded to begin with if that's all we are getting for him, worst case scenario he's a decent 3rd line player. He had 40 points the previous season, 18 goals, those didn't just fall out of the sky. He had a bad year, I agree but dumping him because he had a blip in his progression is silly. He's a big body, protects the puck well, has a good shot even if he doesn't use it near enough but needs to work on his speed, needs some confidence and needs to trust his skills. Those are all things that can be and will be worked on, the attributes he currently is good at aren't ones that are as easily teachable, you can't teach big. Go back and look at Kreiders stats, his early years aren't that impressive, not far from the 40 points Kakko got last year, it took him time, it might take Kakko time and if it doesn't then he can protect the puck and use his possession skills to wear teams down on the 3rd line and learn to become a useful defensive minded player.
But "All he does is possess the puck and battle along the boards!" He can't play on our third line at low AAV with that skillset. Dump him for a bag of chips!
