Kadri brings an element that Bailey totally does not. Kadri's strength is Bailey's weakness. That's hard to quantify.
But even for the quantifiable stuff, Kadri scores goals at a .30 per game career clip, whereas Bailey is at .18 goals per game. Bailey has never scored 20 goals, whereas Kadri has scored 32 twice, 28 once, and 20 another time (plus 19 in 51 games and 18 in 48 games in shortened seasons). And Kadri has been playing C and
Bailey is a winger! Also, I'll guess the vast majority of Kadri's career games have been on the 2nd line, whereas Bailey has played a decent amount on the top line (with top line players and PP time). A lot of Bailey's points have been assists to Tavares, Lee, Nelson, etc..
You just beat me to it!
I am not going argue on Kadri's production, he is obviously a more physical and scores more goals than Bailey. We can disagree on the intangibles but no need to get into that. Kadri will also likely come with a much bigger price tag and more years as well for a player that is almost exactly a year younger than Bailey.
I was curious about your comment about Bailey's top line minutes even strength (I didnt do the work on PP but don't think he got much time there for the first half of his career either). He has been all over the lineup during his career, so would not say he has had top line minutes for the majority.
I used Dobber sports which gives the % you play with each line combo by year.
It wasn't until 2014/15, his 7th year, that he began to play with Tavares. He had over 50% of his even strength ice time with Tavares 3x (14/15,16/17 and 17/18, the line combinations in 15/16 were crazy but Nelson was his most common line mate) and Barzal 1x (18-19 just over 50%, he played about 30% of the time with Barzal last year). So. you might say he has been on the first line only 4 times out of his 14 seasons. He has been all over the lineup LW,C,RW , 1st , 2nd and 3rd line, even some time with 4th liners. H
Thinking about how he was rushed early on, Bailey's most common even strength line combinations by year for his first 6 seasons none of which were top line. These are the most common combinations, he played with a number of other wingers but very seldom with Tavares prior to 2014/15.:
2008-2009. - Comeau , Jackman
2009-2010 - Nielsen, Okposo
2010-2011 - Comeau , Shremp
2011-2012 - Rolston, Martin
2012-2013 - Nielsen - Okposo (injured and strike shortened year only played 38 games)
2013-2014 - Grabner ,Nielsen
Since those first seasons Bailey has 378 points in 587 regular seaoson games, a 64.4% PPG pace. Not too bad for what his contract is IMO, not even mentioning the intangibles (which we might differ on).
Some of Kadri's early seasons he was paired with some good wingers (he only played 1 game in 2009-10). Most frequent line combination:
2010-11 Kessel Bozak (only played 29 games)
2011-12 Macarthur, Lombardi (only played 21 games)
2012-2013 - Macarthur , Uncle Leo (only played 48 games)
2013-2014 Phil Kessel , JVR (78 games first full season, played with top line most often)
In fairness, just going by the line combos it looks like he got relegated the next season to play further down the lineup.
Just thought it was interesting.