Shayna Goldman

I'm not surprised about Chris Kreider.

I watched him play his entire career here.

I wrote about the Rangers a lot while he was here.

And last year, I did a deep dive into his game as well in the early goings of the season to try to figure out what was going wrong for him.

And it does seem like the injuries were the biggest issue.

I think the system hurt, but I think the injuries were what held him back from being as effective off the rush and even in his net front role on the power play.

So if he were to get healthy, it felt like

there's a way to get him back on track.

If you can maximize some of the skills, like he's not the perfect puck carrier, he's not an elite passer, but he's someone who has the speed, has the skill, and has the dexterity in front of the net to be effective.

So to put him on that Anaheim power play with a lot of young guns, now that he's healthy, it just clicks.

Shane Pinto, on the other hand, doesn't have that track record to fall back on.

And with the Senators, I think we all had to look at them and go, do you have that second layer of offense behind Tim Stutzler and Brady Kachuk?

And over the last couple of years, the answer has been absolutely not.

I mean, last season, the shooting percentage is low.

That's why they're not scoring goals.

But the expected goal creation at five on five still lacked.

So it's not...

You know, it wasn't the most surprising they were where they ranked in goal scoring last year.

So to have him emerge as this like really good all around 3C and, you know, I think you could just label him as a middle six center because he's been playing a lot more.

You know, that goal scoring is more surprising, but it's so needed there.