May I try? The initial point was that McMichael was struggling. He 2 assists in his last 8 games. His points 60 in that stretch are bad. The points 60 doesnt account for that 8 game stretch that is current. It also suggests that McMichael is playing well while not scoring any actual goals and putting up very few points.
This is a conversation that goes back to last season where Twabs insisted that Kuznetsov was playing great and Backstrom was struggling. Backstrom lead the team in scoring and the GM was calling Kuzy out for hurting the team at the end of the season. Kuznetsov had 29 pts in 41 games last season. Backstrom had 53pts in 55 games and was the guy not playing well while Kuzy was better. We were told that actual points on the board were overrated in showing who was good and who wasn't.
How long would you let a young player's goalless streak go on before you did something about it?
If we assume point-scoring is distributed similarly to a Poisson distribution (it’s not exactly because each point-scoring event is certainly not independent of prior events, but it’s probably close enough to make the calculations relatively accurate) then what we’re seeing out of McMichael is completely expected from a player whose actual results and talent are 2.0 points/60 and playing about 12:15 5v5 minutes per game over the past 8 games (his current average over the past 8 games).
Indeed, using the handy dandy Poisson calculator below we find that there is a ~37% chance that an 8 game stretch will consist of 2 or fewer points, given a 2.0 point per 60 scorer who plays 12:15 minutes per game at 5v5.
https://stattrek.com/online-calculator/poisson.aspx
So if you’re disappointed with his point scoring I think your expectations are probably way too high. Everyone who is not in the top tier of league scorers (the Kucherovs, McDavids, and Ovechkins of the league) regularly go through stretches like McMichael.
This is exactly why I suggest that if he is to be reassigned to the AHL there should be another reason aside from points.