Dave's a mess wrote:
This Kostin stuff is very revisionist. He had every opportunity to earn a permanent spot and never did. Which one of the 9 20 goal scorers last season was he supposed to take time away from? All 9 of them had a more complete game than Kostin. We've certainly seen 4th line players earn top 9 minutes when opportunities opened up, but Kostin spit the bit every time he got one of those opportunities. It's not as if he was dominant in the minors, his best season in the AHL he put up 30 points in 48 games. He's producing less than half a point a game and has not great underlying numbers in Edmonton despite occasionally playing with McDavid and everybody loses their mind.
They gave him opportunities, and he never earned more. Kostin is probably better than the guy they got in the trade, but this is a big time "meh" from me.
46 games for a former 1st rd pick is not anywhere near enough time to make a fair assessment of a players skill level. And that's all he played as a Blue.
When John Davidson was here he said you really need to play 300 NHL Games before you get the full verdict in on a player. So if that's the case then 200 for sure if you want to get an idea on what this guy has. As mentioned, it's not like this Blues team is loaded with young talent at forward. To rush someone off at 46 games is too premature. Ty Rattie? That guy sucked. It was apparent. Get his ass out of here. He only played 30 games here. But Kostin was a big boy with potential and that is undeniable. His stats in Edmonton are pretty good right now, 7 goals, 11 points in 27 games averaging 10 minutes of ice with 81 hits and a shooting pct of 19.4. If Kostin was traded for value, different story, but he was just given away and that's a red flag in my book.