Quoting: justaBoss
Surface level...well goals and points. To be fair those are the ones that matter the most. At the end of the day this is a scoring game - the one who scores more wins.
Lemme put it this way - Laine this year has been bad and hid performance is definitely more erratic but his ceiling justifies a $10M contract should he achieve that. His QO is $7,5M.
Meier is constantly a good top-6 winger and I reckon his ceiling could justify a $7,5M contract. His QO is $10M.
Both assets have their issues. In theory that swap could work, but if Laine finds his game and reaches that potential, Columbus is going to lose both in terms of player and contract. This is why I said in the first comment that CBJ simply has too much to lose here. And it still wouldn't solve that center problem.
Meier does benefit from having centers such as Couture and Hertl. It's a total mystery how he would fare with the likes of Texier and Roslovic. It goes without saying they're a step down of those two.
If I come into the NHL and score 40 goals, my team mates score 0, and my opponents score 100 while I'm on the ice, are those strong numbers, statistically speaking?
Laine is basically a soft version of that. He is *consistently* making sure the ice tilts in the opposing team's favor. He takes sooo many shots, and yet his team manages to shoot less than his opponents with him on the ice.
Meier is having a pretty average season for an NHLer, slightly outscoring his opponents, but he has seasons in the past where he's scoring like crazy, making his teammates score like crazy, and making his opponents score less than they usually do.
And then you add in factors like teammates, opponents, opposition goaltending, and all of a sudden you have expected goal measures that tell us Meier is light years ahead of Laine. Now - these stats do sometimes miss out on an above average shooter - like Laine. Meier is more average to slightly worse actually in terms of shooter effects. But it doesn't even begin to put a dent in the *massive* gap between them.
Meier has elite seasons behind him. Laine only gets above average if you very generously take his shot into account. I wouldn't pay Laine $4m for any of his previous seasons. Meier has seasons worth a cap hit of like $10-11m.