I think it's the other way around.
Everyone who watched his last season knows he started off hot and then boom.....nothing for the rest of the season. That's how his year ended and then he found himself out the door.
He flashed in 2 streaks for the pens, and was just as cold on 2 others. If anyone described his time in PIT it was one word, inconsistent.
Please be honest on the evaluation of the player.
Everyone liked McCann because they saw the talent even though he had his cold patches. But he was no longer a under 25, and it was widely views as this is what he is.
So when it came time to part with a guy who was having 20+ games with no goals, they weren't sweating it.
Because he was views in the same way you are viewing KK now. Which is just ridiculous. He's 23, now is not the time to give up on a player like that or sit around bashing him.

and yet he still had 20 + game streak of no goal.

Is he the only player in NHL history to have a cold streak? Doesn't seem as though, so looks like your only talking point is irrelevant

well then why is ok to view KK in the same way?
That was the whole point to begin with.
That it's a mistake to view a player like that. What part of that can you clearly not follow.

Kotkaniemi is 23 and at this point in his career, he is what he is. A defensive bottom 6 center with little to no offensive upside. If a player shows you who they are, maybe you should believe them.

Not everyone is Tage Thompson. Not every struggling "young" player is going to break out at some point in the future. It's an incredibly rare occurrence

what a troll post

Tell me when McCann was 23 having been in the league for 4 years, and was riding pine as a 13th forward only getting 30 some games a year should we have all said, at that point in his career he is what he is?

Just delete your poor logic. It's better for everyone.

Dude, it's clear you're not a Pens fan and I'm not saying that to be a dick. You just have the situation completely wrong in every single way and it's clear you weren't watching the situation unfold when it happened. When McCann got moved, every single Pens hockey writer went off on how bad a decision Hextall is making because of how good McCann was for the Pens and also how he's misplaying the expansion draft strategy just to keep Carter.

He clearly doesn't know the situation at all. He's hypothesizing based on nothing.

His longest goalless streak in his last season with the pens was 6. His longest pointless streak was 4. Totally inconsistent (sarcasm). You’re out to lunch on this one.

Btw his longest pointless streak the season before that was 4. And the season he got traded was 5. He never went really long stretches without a point.

Just to be clear…Kotkaniemi already has 3 separate pointless streaks of at least 6 games. His biggest being 10.

He had 40 last year, and is still incredibly young. He's a fine skater, he's not exceptionally fast, but he's not slow. He's definitely got around 50 point upside if he can find a little more consistency.

Nope, I live in this reality, you should watch some Canes games and join us instead of blind hating a kid that's actually been good

He's exceptional defensively, and he's been VERY good. Perhaps you should try watching him more often, but he's not bad. His shooting, oh my god, he may bruise a goalies chest on certain nights, but he's a very good NHL player

We'd get a 1st +. He's 24, a defensive stalwart signed to less than 5 with consistent 50 point upside with 5 years of term. Eller is WAY worse than KK at both ends, he's got worse analytics, worse eye test, and is a decade older than KK.

clearly you have some either beer goggle or some seriously tinted lens in your glasses. Because everyone was posting articles on his struggles in the season and no one was surprised at the end. People wanted to hold faith the young player would turn it around. Which is my whole point with KK here but hey cap friendly you got a name lets drag him and troll him. Like McCann was playing any better than KK at 23. Or do you not remember FL thinking so little of him they threw him in on what was widely considered a swap of cap dumbs in horny for matheson.

Please be honest about it and take the rosey glasses off.

Just because a pens fan is willing to give honest assessments of a team and it's players and you can't accept it doesn't mean they aren't a pens fan.
McCann was ice cold for long stretches. If he would have continued playing the same way in SEA no one would have cared.
But he busted out and that's the point. They, like FL before them, gave up on him to early.
Then here is you throwing a 23 year old KK who has also flashed a lot of talent into the Mud because he's inconsistent.

Majorly disagree. Eller's mediocre defensively, Kotkaniemi is actually a very strong defensive forward, and KK's got 50 point upside being, what, 10 years younger? Stop it. KK's a fine middle six C, and for what he makes, he's good.

Yeah not even true. Why come here and lie?

Here is how his play really looked.
" four of the nine goals Jared McCann has scored were shot into an empty net."
"McCann isn't scoring. Remember that 22-game goalless streak he carried into the coronavirus shutdown? Still going. The last goal came Jan. 14 in a blowout of ..."

But go on.....

https://www.hockey-reference.com/players/m/mccanja01/gamelog/2021

I’m not lying. Here is his game log from his final season in Pittsburgh. Show me where the 20+ game goalless streak is that was the reason he got traded out of Pittsburgh.

McCann never had a season where he scored only 9 goals. So you’re clearly the one lying here lol…at least not with Pittsburgh anyway

If a player like Riley Smith were to go back in this deal, I would probably do it because it then allows us to shift Malkin to the wing. As opposed to many others in this, Now the term is a slight concern but he remains a good two-way foward who is streaky but so is 95% of the league.

I mean he's good defensively but he's probably the worst in his own end out of the regular centers. He has been snakebitten but it has been concerning about his lack of production

Canes fans gotta let go of the narrative that KK is some never seen before Bergeron reincarnation in his own end. The only reason his defensive numbers are even the slightest bit appealing is because his quality of comp is near non existent. The guys on his team take all the matchups and he practically plays against bums and it makes him look so much better than he is. He also sucks offensively.

LOL You clearly don't know what you're talking about.

Where are you arriving with this "consistent 50 point upside?" What does that even mean? How can you have consistent upside?

Also, please provide the analytics that you clearly haven't looked at. Provide them for THIS year.

I'm not sure why you think I care about this to a point that I'm trying to create a different narrative. All you're doing is proving to other people on this board that you have zero clue what you're talking about.

This guy just signed up today. He's gotta be some weird troll. He's clearly delulu

He's average defensively. I don't think he's been snakebitten either. To be be snakebitten you need to have some kind of consistency to begin with and he's had none.

He's been an average player it's just that nothing is going on for him