Pettersson's one of the poster boys for why I still think analytics have a long way to go. Analytics paint him as some sort of great contributor to offense, but it does NOT show up in his actual production.
Anyone who adheres strongly to the accuracy of these analytics, please make that make sense. How does a guy with zero goals and not even that many assists translate into this really good offense driver?
I think a good comparison is Rakell. We can watch him game in and game out making positive contributions on the ice, especially on the forecheck that lead to high-quality chances and goals but he doesn't end up getting the assist. There have been numerous times this season that his hard work and forecheck created the play that we end up scoring on and the scoresheet says "Crosby from Guentzel and Letang" (or similar) but if you watch, it was Rakell that made it happen.
With that, if he's with Letang that helps as Letang tends to drive offense as well. So if you can be a good partner that contributes to the continuation of play that leads to offense, then you are doing your job. Sometimes that will translate into points, sometimes not. At the end of the day, that's not why he's here though.
Going back to Rakell, when I looked at the stat line and thought he should have WAY more points than what he does, especially based on the eye test, I took the position of "well as long as the line is scoring with his contributions and we are winning, I will put less emphasis on his individual stat line" and i think that's an incredibly reasonable approach to a guy like Rakell.
Likewise, I think the same can be said for Pettersson.
My issue with moving Pettersson is salary and contract lengths. While everyone here wants to get out of the deal for some reason, they quickly forget the fact that contract rates and lengths are increasing, not decreasing. The natural "inflation" of salaries means that you are likely paying a $3mil guy $4-5mil now. So if we move Pettersson and look to replace him with a $4mil player, I believe that player will provide a lesser level of play than what Pettersson currently is. Petts plays up and down the lineup on all three pairings. He's fine on the top pair with Letang too so that's a relatively rare asset to have locked up at a reasonable rate.
Pettersson has this year + 2 more years at $4mil and is 26yo. He is far from a contract issue at his current level of play.
It's like "Let's trade Zucker so that we can sign Bertuzzi for $7mil!" Ummmm...why? Is Bertuzzi really giving us THAT much more than Zucker would at a reduced hit? Gotta think he goes for what Saad does, or close, at $4.5mil for 4yrs. So why are we so quick to get rid of someone only to replace them with an, at best, equal asset that costs us more in cap?
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