You use the word "underperformed".
I use the word "overperformed".
Funny how people set a new "expectation" for players and changes how they discuss them.
This offseason, there were even threads looking to swap
Pavel Datsyuk! for Patches!.
MaxPac is only getting 15min/game this year.
Last year he got about 18min/game.
This season, Montreal is playing WELL.
They are winning.
So... why is there any reason for Therrien to change the way he is doing things and give Patches more ice-time?
I predicted this in the off-season, that the new coach (Therrien) would not necessarily lean on MaxPac-DD-Cole the way that RC did.
It's a different season, different coach.
I think a lot of people are making a mistake that last year's MaxPac-DD-Cole numbers could be repeated.
I even went so far myself as to make Erik Cole my "
lock" pick with my over/under picks this year - and that pick is looking very, very, very good.
Simply stated, MaxPac-DD-Cole overperformed last year on a BAD Montreal Canadiens team.
There was no more "up" to last year's output.
Things were only bound to get worse as a new coach would make new changes to try to win games. And here we are...