Quoting: TrueCanuck
Honestly, you're usually one of the few Hawks fans opinions that I respect on here.. but your opinion here is nothing but bias.
Strome had 1 hot *half* of a season when he started his career with Chicago and that was mainly just points. But he lacks production now, the foot speed still isn't great at all, lacks defensively responsibility, and honestly if he doesn't have linemates that are good, he just isn't anything special. Do you really want that as a centre? At best I'd say he's a 3LW but he's really not a good option at centre for this level at all.
This post was meant to be made just as a fun kind of thing and turned into a debate of team vs team. In reality you can't really compare a fantasy team to a real life team logically, and I tried to do that, so for that I apologize.
On Strome, all the analytics say strome has been an effective player for the hawks. The possesion metrics. (not sure if you're into that or not) are atcually quite strong. Additionally, the eye test coming from someone like myself who has watches 90+% of hawks games the last 10 years, including Stromes last 3 years here, say Strome looks like a pretty good player when he's put in the position to succeed. For whatever reason Colliton didn't like Strome and when he wasn't scratched was relegated to a 4th line role. Of course Strome isn't going to succeed as a 4th line grinder with carpenter and khaira. It makes no sense. When played in the top 9 with some offence around him strome has looked good imo and the analytics back that up. Strome is NOT a winger. He plays exponentially worse on the wing. He's one of our best faceoff guys so I never truly understand why we try to play him on the wing. Maybe it worked in juniors but not the NHL.
I truly believe given a competent coaching staff that Strome is a 50 point center in this league and solid 2C. Yes, his skating is a weakness, but he wins face-offs, is sound enough in his own end, and is really good playmaker, and will go to the dirty areas when he needs to. It's a shame that Chicago will probably never see the 51 points in 58 games strome that we saw a few years ago, but I wouldn't be surprised if he gets back to around that level of play if he's ever traded