Quoting: RazWild
I mean, what did you expect? Rau is 29 years old. He should be outproducing a 20 year old. And yet he's tied with the kid. In large part DUE to having Rossi on his line. Shaw is 3 years older and has 1 less point than Rossi, so tell me again how Rossi underperformed this year in the AHL.
We get it, you don't like the kid because he's short. But the fact remains he had that type of season after a year-long absence due to Covid recovery is pretty damn impressive.
He needs to beat out NHL players, and he's not even beating out AHL players. Yay great, he had a decent year in the AHL, but it wasn't anything special. Saying he should get a spot in the NHL because he was put up the same amount of points as other guys that belong nowhere near the NHL is weird to me.
He wasn't too good for the AHL last year. He isn't at the point where his overall game has graduated out of the AHL either. Boldy was at that point of too good, and wouldn't have gained anything by staying in the AHL. This is just basic prospect development stuff. He learned things and improved as the season went on; that's all you can ask from any prospect.
Addison is about at that point in his development too. He needs steady NHL time next year to keep developing. He's not going to get much improvement by playing more AHL games. It's just stagnation for him by staying there. Maybe he's good enough to make the next step, maybe he's not. But he's at that point in his development where it's time to find that out.
Rossi's game needs work and he needs to add muscle mass this offseason. His size does matter because he's not going to be effective on 2 of the FWD lines. He's not fighting with Duhaime for a roster spot. Rossi needs to be better than Hartman, Freddy G, and/or Jost. Right now he's not. If he's not at the start of next season then he belongs in the AHL.
I might not be very high on him as a prospect, but that doesn't mean I want him to fail. MN needs him to turn into 1C if they want to have any longterm success. The cupboard is empty for possible top-6 centers outside of him.