I agree...I think he is an upgrade as well, but if he's picked, I see the fact that we just lost hallender and a 7th.
While technically true, I think this misses the point. McCann immediately became our runaway 5th best forward. He's closer to being as good as the bottom end of our big 4 (JT & Nylander) than he is to being as good as our depth guys and we got him in the exact type of situations that we're supposed to be exploiting as the alleged smart kids. Expansion draft with a bunch of teams poorly evaluating their internal player pool and making dumb mistakes. Instead we're sitting here exposing this good player of need that we just got for a steal of a price so that we can protect a good but just good #4 RHD who is replaceable internally.
There's a bunch of people really high on Conor Garland here, call him a core piece, etc...okay cool
Last 2 years:
McCann(25yrs 1yr 2.9M): 2.01 P/60, 51.5 CF%, 61.3 GF%, 52.3 xGF%
Garland(25yrs RFA): 2.19 P/60 51.4 CF%, 56.4 GF%, 52.8 xGF%
Very, very similar overall impacts the last 2 years with Garland having the edge in 5v5 production, but still fairly close. Keep in mind also that McCann appears to be at minimum a decent centre and played his best this year while covering for Malkin.
So I'm choked that we went out and stole a player of need from Pittsburgh because they made a dumb decision at the expansion draft, only to turn around probably lose him (he's the best player we're leaving available, and by a lot) so that we can protect Holl, who is entirely replaceable.