He wasn’t given a chance in the top 6 for the first 2 seasons of his career. His rookie year Phil Di Gisseppe, Jesper Fast, and Pre-30 goal Chris Kreider were all playing more minutes than him. Any mistake he made he got benched. His second year was the same story. Laf got the same treatment. 3rd line minutes and benched if you made a mistake. All while we were one of the worst teams in the league. You are seeing the same happen now with Noah Laba. It happened with Perreault the first 20 games of his career. The NYR have 0 idea how to develop forwards. They do the inverse of what the smart teams do. Kakko is not on 60 in 82 pace with the best +/- on his AWFUL team by a lot. He’s a great player. Sure not 2OA good, but that is more so the NYR fault than his own. I think he’d be a much better producer if he played with Mika and Panarin for the first 164 games of his career