Nah, more like even national mouthpieces are more rational than your take. Of course, my view of your opinion was lowered a bunch a week ago when you asserted that Laf was a better player than Arty. Laf plays a simple north-south game and shoots a lot but I'd take Kaliyev 100 times out of 100 between the 2.
You're saying the same mostly nonsense stuff that people said about Durzi and other whipping boy players. People overstate the negatives ("he stinks in the defensive zone") and ignore the positives that the players. Very few players are perfect. I'll take a guy who generates 30 goals and gives up 15 over a guy who generates 10 and gives up 0 because they are net better.
And you realize that average time on ice is exactly that-- the average per game. His being ~50 seconds higher than Laf means exactly that. It's the same reason some stats are normalized as goals/60 or points/60.
Before I said Laf is playing better than Kaliyev, not that he was better. Laf was a better fit with Dubois, which was the point. I felt keeping Laf with Dubois was better than putting Kaliyev there. There were many games were Laf was the better player. Some Kaliyev was.
When it comes to overstating negatives, that is not the point. People only bring up the negatives at times and others cannot accept it. So, he scores, and ... but the PP.
Tonight's game was a pretty good one for Kaliyev. Not a lot of mistakes, and a lot more positives this game compared to the last few. And, I am not even talking about the goal. That is icing on the cake. Hard to complain of Kaliyev's mistakes this game, as the first few periods the Kings as a whole were pretty bad and he was not worse than many others. It is just that most games he is worse than anyone else.
I used to give Grunny a hard time to. Lasts year, the year before. He would do some stupid stuff out there. First few games this year he had 2 brain dead plays that I called out. People, maybe even you said but he gets goals etc... Anyway, he has been fine ever since. Sure, he makes mistakes, everyone does out there. It is the really stupid stuff that I try to call out. Just to give people a different opinion as most folks on here talk about his shot and how he should play with Kopi (when Byfield struggled the first few games).
Durzi was great, he made mistakes, and a few brain dead plays here an there. Believe it or not, I did not have as big of an issue with his play as many on here. Called out his stupid stuff for sure, if I even said anything.
My entire discussion on Kaliyev this year started with people wanting him to replace Laf when he came back from his suspension. With how Kaliyev played in the preseason, especially with Dubois and Fiala, I was against putting Kaliyev there and wanted to keep Laf there. I have been kind of defending that position from all sides ever since then. If it is not you, it is someone else. I make a comment do back up my position in a discussion with someone else, then another member like you takes over and I start it all over again. Sounds like I just want to bitch about the guy, when I am just trying to give my opinion on his overall game to counter the lovers of all things goals. I mean Fox called him out one game when he was pretty awful. How often does Fox call out any Kings players like that? Thing is, he has played 5-6 games that were exactly like that or worse. He has been better, but still makes more bad deciscions than anyone else on the team. If he keeps getting better, than great. He finished up last year making those same mistakes, which led to him being scratched a lot.
Kaliyev is fortunate his mistakes have not lead to more goals against. For example the puck was on his stick this game, he was not pressured at all, but somehow the puck ends up in the slot and the BJ's have a prime scoring chance short handed. In general Kaliyev makes plays like that way to often for my taste. However, like I said this was overall a pretty good game for him. Mistakes and stupidity were kept to minium and he made some other nice plays. On top of that he had a great shift that led to him getting the tying goal.
