Keller vs Aho

[Darkwing Puck]

(For the sake of clarity, I'm talking about Carolina's Aho and I'm not talking about trading Aho for Keller, just looking at how the two players compare to each other.)

Who would you rather have ROS and going forward?

I've had Aho for several seasons now, but while he teases us with his potential, he never seems to be able to quite break through and become truly elite. Part of that, I think, is that his value is tied closely to Svechnikov's, who's had trouble staying healthy the last couple seasons. Conversely, Keller seems like a bit more of a play driver. He doesn't have anywhere near the same level of talent around him but he manages to put up similar offensive numbers (obviously, if someone like Cooley or Hayton can develop into a solid centre, then that would help Keller immensely).

A couple of other considerations. We use a salary cap for keepers, so the fact that Keller makes $2.5 million less a season (starting in 2024-25) is a point in his favour. We have discussed potentially replacing +/- with FOW or FO%, which would obviously give centres a boost, but Aho seems to be about average as a faceoff guy, so I'm not seeing that as a change that would give him a huge bump in value.

[TheDard]

I like the consistency of Aho. He's shown it more than Keller.
Believe both their upsides to be very similar.

If I had more faith in the Arizona team and system, I might lean towards Keller; but too many question marks to beat what Aho can do and has done.

[RizzeeDizzee]

Aho's true potential has not been achieved because Carolina's system doesn't reap ice time - at ES or on the PP - on its stars. With the team doing as well as it is, that isn't likely to change. That having been said, it still might be enough to be of more value than Keller. But I feel like Arizona is poised to really come alive, and Keller will see a major benefit if/when that happens. One telling stat is both have 24 PPPts, but Arizona has only 38 PPPGs, whereas Carolina has 49. All things being equal, I think Aho gets the edge, but they're not equal, and a savings of $2.5M against the cap is nothing to sneeze at. I like Keller here, but barely.