Jonathan Drouin, 2018-19 post-mortem

https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/drouin-takes-glass-half-full-approach-another-disappointing-season/

So what did we decide on Jonathan Drouin?  Is he a project still, should we expect more?  Or is he what he is currently, a mercurial winger who'll score in bunches and bring in 50 points, but disappear for long stretches of time?

In the post-season wrapups, it's almost like the journos are doing Marc Bergevin's job, they're acting like fans who still hope for more, treating Jo with kid gloves, to not affect his mood or his confidence.  I guess I'm okay with that, I prefer it to when we create a crisis, with P.K., with Max Pacioretty as only two examples, and have to trade away players at a loss, compared with Steve Yzerman or Joe Sakic, who can keep a malcontent for months/years until the price is right to sell.

But what did we arrive at?  Was there a couple of frank admissions that Jo was out of shape as the season wore on and ran out of gas?  That he reported to camp in reasonable shape but couldn't follow the pace by the end of the season?  Did I see that clearly laid out?

Or was this just a player sulking?  Which wouldn't surprise me, it wouldn't be the first instance of diva behaviour from him, but was this all this was?  A player who shut it down, because reasons, who got into his own head and... I don't know, what was he trying to achieve?  Was he trying to get traded?  Did he quit on the Canadiens, or, more precisely, on Montréal? 

As a last last question on the locker cleanout day, one reporter asked if he'd have long hair next season.  Everyone laughed good-naturedly, but is this where we are?  Was the hair a reflection of a flaw or lack of something?  Is this something which will become a non-issue we all agree is a non-issue, except because we have a hundred reporters at the rink and a thousand blogs, all of us discussing that it's a non-issue makes it an issue?

In many of the analyses, one of the priorities described for GM Marc Bergevin is to find a game-breaker, a high-octane forward.  Isn't the easiest way to get that forward is to wring more out of Jonathan Drouin?  Because isn't this the unspoken angle here, the elephant in the room, that Jonathan Drouin was going at half-speed, was loafing?  That Jonathan took the end of the year off, but if he'd kept stepping on the gas, he would have been the guy who gets you that important goal, who'll break the tie or score the overtime goal?