He is still just back from a debilitating injury that had been plaguing him for 2+ years. That is tough to deal with. No training camp, no pre-season, just thrown straight into the fire and expected to perform.
That being said, I’ve never been a huge Ryan Whitney fan. I debated openly the idea that trading Noah Welch 2 years back for Gary Roberts was iffy because I thought Welch might project to be a better D-Man. While that may not be the case, I think they do have 1 offensive D-Man that will be better than Whitney in Letang and another one that, based on his play, will project to be better than him as well in Goligoski.
He’s just always been way too soft and slow for me. If you’re going to be slow, bust some skulls like Orpik. Or if your going to be soft, skate your ass off like Gonchar. But it can’t be both in my opinion.
It’s a catch 22. If they were playing well, there’d be no reason to trade them because they would fit better in the system here. But when they aren’t playing well, you’ll get less for them.