Chris Kunitz has come under fire this season from some people because they feel as though he has "lost a step". As we should all know by now sometimes the eyes are telling us things that just aren't true. Not everybody's eye test is created equally. Some people don't look at the right things. Or at the very least they aren't taking into consideration all the variables at play.

Here are some pretty straight forward facts about Chris Kunitz that aren't debatable.

Over an 82 game season he is on pace to score 31 goals and have 68 points. Clearly he will not play in 82 games this year because of his broken foot but he has 11 goals and 13 assists for 24 points in his 29 games so far this year. This scoring pace is right in line with his career best 68 points season in 78 games which he accomplished just last year.

What about the process though, how is he doing at driving play?





That is his game by game report for possession this season. As you can see he is very rarely in the negative. In fact his even strength CF% of 55.7% leads the entire Penguins team.

Those three games in a row towards the end of the chart where he is negative are the three games after he returned from his broken foot. He is starting to trend back up again and that leads me to believe that perhaps he wasn't 100% when he returned.

Penguins may have some concerns about their top six moving forward, but Chris Kunitz is not one of them. He is still producing from a possession standpoint as well as an offensive one.

If the eye test is saying that he isn't doing well, perhaps Santa missed the boat with not delivering some new glasses.

Kunitz may trend downwards by the time his current contract ends, but it hasn't started yet.

Thanks for reading!


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