What your eye test told you did not agree what the stats said. Why should anyone trust your eye test over the stats?

Because analytics are simply not always right and nearly impossible to separate a player individually from his teammates on the ice. Often times they work, but a lot of times they don't.

In fact, a great article showing 10 glaring examples was just posted by The Athletic. If you don't subscribe, I highly suggest you do as it's probably the best hockey coverage in the industry.

https://theathletic.com/4714802/2023/07/27/nhl-player-data-analytics-lessons/

Furthermore, you just proved my point by deflecting my question that your eye test told you nothing, because you haven't watched Kurashev play enough to warrant a good eye test.

Stats. Not analytics. If you just look at the raw numbers, then guy is bad on a bad team. If you analyze those numbers... he's still bad on a bad team.

And I've already read that article.

If you use your eye test, and you read the article, you'd realize it's impossible to separate individual stats and analytics from the rest of the guys on the ice...on a bad team...and then you'd realize he's not the problem. Kurashev has looked good as a 3rd liner, and that is what he is. He was given a contract as such. He can't control the team around him, but again, if you watched him you'd realize that's the problem.

HE. WAS. BELOW. AVERAGE. ON. THE. HAWKS. LAST. YEAR!

You keep arguing that his stats were bad because the Hawks were bad. However, if you look at the stats, you see HE WAS BAD WHEN COMPARED TO THE AVERAGE PLAYER ON THE TEAM.

What part of this are you not getting?

And don't come back and say "Eye test", because I've seen countless players who were over valued by their fan base.

YOU. DON'T. WATCH. HIM. PLAY

Your opinion is worthless as such. Not ONE scout, coach or GM in the NHL relies solely on stats; that should tell you something.

Kurashev got a fair deal, arbitration is the ultimate tell-tale sign of that.