Brown brought it one series. After sewering the whole season. With that I smell a player playing for next contract. will need more than one series for this player to sway me. As much as I like Janmark he had a strong finals but his regular season outside of pk was kind of meh.
I don't buy that with Brown it was all just injuries holding him back. From his own accounts it was also him corkscrewing himself into the ice half the season. No guarantee that won't occur again.
My sense is Brown showed up at the biggest time and while that can be seen as a huge plus the same player was a passenger 90% of the season. I look at that too.
This team is at the point where they need to actively seek out / retain the ever so elusive playoff performers. It isn't the first playoffs that Janmark has had a palpable impact on. One other example being his memorable hat trick for Vegas in game 7. And if Brown was playing for a contract, it seems strange that he took the $1M to stay here, as it is an absolute certainty he would have gotten more on the open market. The player has come on since healing up from the injury, which isn't a shock
Even if he has a slow start or is uneven during the season, that's quite alright as they have the horses elsewhere and he's being paid nearly league minimum. McLeod's $2.1 carried the expectation to produce, and outside of getting zoomed by Draisaitl (you can't deny that), his offensive production was entirely lackluster.
McLeod was a passenger much of the season, and playoffs, and he also nearly gave away game 7 vs the Canucks in a game that the Oilers had complete control over. Someone else posted that was the moment he was done here, I wouldn't be surprised if that is when Knoblauch and Jackson decided they wanted to move on
There's a chance he carries on and does well in Buffalo, but they couldn't afford him here for what they were getting out of him.