Fair enough, but what I like about targeting Zacha is that he wouldn’t cost an arm and a leg, and he could act as a stop-gap C until one of Hage or Kapanen is ready to take over the 2C spot. There’s 2 years left on his deal, and the cap hit is low. He’s also young enough that he could possibly be the long term solution there as well. And he’s decent defensively and wins faceoffs.
I really don’t see any downside. As for the production part, you can never really know if a player’s production will drop. I don’t think it’s quite as simple as saying his production would drop when not playing with Pastrnak. Sure it could, but maybe he stops deferring so much on offense playing with someone else. Everyone thought Foegele’s numbers would tank away from the Oilers and he has set career highs this season.