Who adds what?
Joined: Jul. 2017
Posts: 13,677
Likes: 2,703
A.A. got so much love on this page last year.... but here are some stats where Burakovsky is equal to or better than AA: age, zone starts, career goals, career assists, career points, corsi, single season even strength goals, career even strength goals, career corsi relative to teammates of +3.8% on a good team vs -.18% on a bad team.
Can anyone name something Athanasiou does better than Burakovsky, besides get power play time? I must be missing it. Burakovsky's playing extremely defensive minutes this season and is off to a weak start through an insignificant sample size. He got six even strength points in the last six games of the playoffs. I'm not ready to give up on him just yet.
Connolly for a 2nd and a 5th is good value, but with Shumakov injured there's no rush to get rid of depth. Detroit aren't buying this early in the season, while they've got eight guys on LTIR and another 22 on their roster.
I agree that Burakovsky is slightly underutilized in Washington, and off to a weak start. But he is so massively underrated by Caps fans that I get skeptical just seeing him mentioned on here.