Plus the Swiss league has more lenient rules in terms of international contracts, and more leniency with NHL players breaking contracts to move to the NHL midseason I believe. They can pay foreign star players 750K-2M contracts, and many former NHLers play there (Winnik has played in Geneva for the last few year where Vatanen is now), and large majority of NHLers played there during the lockout. To answer your point about why not Swedish or Finnish league, the Swiss league is generally the highest paid league. Cut that TOI in half and sit him against smaller, faster teams and I think a lot of fans would come back around to him being a useful 12th/13th forward. He also shouldn't be getting 17 mins of TOI per game. I don't think most fans would hate on Grant as much, and his analytics probably wouldn't be as bad, if they'd just use him relative to his actual skill set. That's just setting this team (and that entire line) up for failure IMO.
And Grant wasn't even playing center in that game.
In all, Grant took 22 shifts in that game against the Wild (17:12 in TOI - team high for the forwards), and looking at the play-by-play, I count only 2 of those shifts where he was out against the Wild's 4th line. So what does he do? He matches the Kaprizov line with Deslauriers - Groulx - Grant.
#NHL 17 VIDEOS FULL#
Eakins has a bench full of rested players, a 1-goal lead, a fresh sheet of ice, and the last change. Prime example was the other night against Minnesota - right after the Ducks scored on the PP just 17 seconds into the 2nd period, Minnesota sends out their top line of Kaprizov - Erickson Ek - Zuccarello for the next face-off. Grant is a 4th liner who has a decent impact on the PK, and he should playing against other 4th liners and on the PK, at THAT'S IT! But instead, the coaching staff uses him as the team's primary checking forward to match against the opponents' top lines, which basically just sets him up for failure. Grant has turned into a very polarizing figure, but I put the blame for that mostly on how the coaches are using him, not necessarily on the player himself. It's bad asset management, which has been a hallmark of Murray the last five years. That's like picking up a rock and using it to hold down a tarp, finding out the rock is a precious metal, and then tossing the rock away after you're done using it to hold down the tarp because that's all you wanted it for.
But instead of seeing that he would be a valuable asset to the team this year, he stuck with his original plan and left him exposed over several worse players. Once we had him, it was up to Murray to make the best use of him. It doesn't matter why we acquired Fleury or for whom. Pateryn is an AHL player or 7th d-man on a bad team, at best. Fleury is a good 3rd pairing defenseman, with the ability to play second pairing minutes if needed. Neither have been point producers, but Fleury's possession stats are light years ahead of Pateryn's. Fleury played well with the team last year, still has some upside left, and is left-handed. Do you really think that Pateryn is as good as Fleury? Pateryn is 30, has been awful his entire career, and is right-handed (when we have three right-handers who are already guaranteed spots in the lineup).