Quoting: aecliptic
Ill never be sold on Kuzy. Sure he can put up points but hes soft, doesnt play defense and sucks on faceoffs.
Sometimes he plays defense.... but yeah, faceoffs and consistent backchecking are why I've got the Caps trading him for a guy four years older, $3M more expensive who hasn't broken 30 points in a single postseason and hasn't come quite as close to a 30 goal season. That's exactly it.
Also, as far as depth charts, the Caps have Protas maybe a year away, as a Russian speaking center, doing okay in the KHL right now. The Rangers already have two Russian speaking top-six wings, and have Kravtsov ready to debut as a third Russian-speaking wing with no centers. The simpler move to equalize that would be something next summer involving Buchnevich and Kuznetsov, with NYR adding a bunch of picks and prospects. That would give WSH one more year of Ovechkin and Kuznetsov together to contend, and then let them get younger and cheaper to accommodate Ovechkin's raise next year.
But as far as soft, neither of them is going to give you 100 hits in a season. It just won't happen. Kuznetsov and Toews are skill players who stay out of the corners and stay away from the boards so they can keep their wits about them for when their teammates give them the puck. That works just fine for their teams, and I wouldn't change a thing about it. They each get more hits each year than Panarin, Kakko, Chytil, or Fox, but it really doesn't matter, because centers aren't expected to mix it up along the boards like wings and defensemen are. Soft? Are you serious? Or does insulting guys on here just make you happy?