Joined: Mar. 2017
Posts: 24,015
Likes: 7,737
Athanasiou is NOT an alternative to Hall, he doesn't have even close to the impact that Hall does. Since games are won on the basis of what you create minus what you give up, I like to look at 5v5 GF%Rel to see how a player does in comparison to his teammates. In the past 2.5 years, Hall is 11th in the NHL (among forwards with 1000+ minutes) with a +11.16 mark, while Athanasiou is 301st in the NHL (of 375) with a -5.20 rate. In other words, Hall creates more than he gives up at an elite level while Athanasiou is one of the worst regular players in the league and a big reason why Detroit is as bad as it is.