Strome had his weaknesses but if you can generate offense and get goals it makes up for it. The real issue was that we had a similar offensively minded center behind him so there wasn't much variability there. If we had a couple centers behind him that were good defensively and could take a face-off it wouldn't be much of a big deal.
I was a fan of the Trocheck signing, I think he's been plenty fine. It's unfortunate that Panarin hasn't really clicked with him. That being said, I've also held the opinion that for years now we should've been promoting the young players, including Chytil. We had a good idea that Strome wasnt going to have a future here. That 20-21 season where Chytil paced for +40 points getting 13 minutes a night is the sort of thing that would suggest a larger role could've been given. Unfortunately our bottom 6 was a mess last year and people really soured on him during the season. On pace for +40 points again getting 14 minutes a night, that's really good production for that sort of usage. You look at a player like Sam Bennett, the guy spent 5.5 years playing behind Monahan, Backlund and Lindholm... not much opportunity there. Don't think there's any argument now that he's a top 6 talent, the skill was always there.
Now we're in a tricky spot where our paper #2 doesn't gel with our 11 million dollar winger and we're locked in for 8 years. That may have zero to do with Trocheck frankly, and its not the end of the world because he really is a versatile player. Lot of different elements to his game, can switch to the wing if needed. It's not like it was a bad signing, just that we probably could've filled that spot cheaper internally and really touches on the larger theme here of this organization not properly developing and promoting their prospects.
