Fuhr86 said:
Steen 17 goals and 40 points in 67 games. 18:00 a game and 3:00 a piece on PK and PP. Good numbers on a weak Toronto team. Plays top 6 minutes
Eaves 17 goals and 22 points in 51 games. 10 minutes a games sees 47 seconds on PK and 1:35 on PP. 17 goals on Ottawas 4th line, thats pretty impressive.
Eaves would be putting up much better numbers if he was in TO. Not just that but the style of hockey Eaves plays there would be people out in Leafland comparing his abilitys to that of Gilmour. Steens good but Eaves is better.
1.) I said that it was
based on this year and that Eaves could end up being the better player or comparable.
2.) Nice spin on the numbers.
Eaves 12:32 gets bumped down to 10 minutes a game.
Furthermore, Eaves is 10th in TOI/G for Senators forward but that lists includes Martin Havlat (injured for most of the season) and Tyler Arnason (played all of 13 games for the Senators). When you account for the fact that Spezza and Fisher have both missed 14 games (and I realize Fisher missed a few games before Eaves ever played an NHL game) - I wonder how poor Patrick Eaves keeps finding himself on the fourth line for all his 51 games.
The reality is that Eaves plays much more than his numbers indicate (his 20 minutes of ice-time in the last game at Atlanta for example) and has been given much more ice-time over the course of his 51 NHL games.
There are other factors that have to be considered, you can't just make assumptions that if you switched player X with player Y, the production would be more. If Steen plays on the first line, he usually draws the top defensive pair of the opposition. If Eaves is a fourth line scrub as you say, he won't have to worry about going up against the Charas of the world.
Steen is IMO a much better defensive player (at this stage of their development), as physical as Eaves but is inferior to Eaves when it comes to scoring goals. THIS YEAR, I believe Steen has been the superior player. In the future, it looks to be rather close.
But you're right - when you play with the numbers, present inaccurate facts and make wild assumptions - Eaves is better.