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To say that Jason Pominville’s decline has been drastic would be an understatement.

The Minnesota Wild traded a haul of picks and prospects to acquire Pominville at the 2012-13 trade deadline. Despite a concussion that knocked him out of the playoffs, Pominville’s contributions got a sputtering Wild team into the postseason.

Minnesota rewarded Pominville with a five-year, $28 million extension tacked on to the remaining year on his deal. Pominville responded by leading the team with 30 goals and 60 points.

While few expected Pominville to remain effective all the way through his age-36 season, it was conceivable he could remain productive well into his 30s.

For one thing, Pominville relied on his smarts rather than physical gifts like speed to create space and score goals. He rarely took physical punishment, enabling him to play in 530 of 540 possible games from ages 24 to 30. Those things suggested Pominville could be an asset to his team for at least a good portion of his contract.

Instead, Pominville has struggled in the first two years under his new deal.

At first glance, his 2014-15 season doesn’t seem too bad. His 54 points were second on the Wild, but Pominville’s points per game was his lowest since his rookie year.

More noticeably, his goals evaporated. Despite taking a whopping 252 shots, Pominville went from 30 goals the season previous to just 18.

A look into his underlying numbers suggested this was a fluke. Pominville’s 7.1 shooting percentage was the lowest of his career, and a massive drop from his career 11.8 mark. Everything else looked the same. Pominville was shooting more, he got more assists, his Corsi For percentage was better than his previous year. It was safe to assume he would bounce back in 2015-16.

That didn’t happen.

Pominville started out the year horrendously, going scoreless in his first 21 games. Getting the first goal wasn’t a magic tonic, either. His shooting percentage actually declined to 5.9 percent en route to an 11-goal season, easily the worst of his career. And unlike the previous season, he didn’t have solid assist numbers making up for the lack of scoring.

A late-season surge provided a glimmer of hope his productive days weren’t over, but it was too little, too late. Just two years into his five-year contract, Pominville is now seen as an albatross, with a lengthy and expensive cap penalty being the only thing standing between him and a buyout.

But as it was in 2014-15, Pominville’s underlying numbers again showed that he should’ve had a much better year. Pominville’s shots fell from 252 to 187, but that gap is mostly due to his two fewer minutes per game. There was no drop-off to his shooting at 5-on-5 play. He was one of the strongest possession players for Minnesota.

Hockey Graphs analyst Ryan Stimson has been tracking passing data throughout the NHL, and the results of this data are quite favorable to Pominville. In the data that Stimson tracked, Pominville ranked second on the team in shot assists (passes that led to a shot attempt) per hour.

When you combine his set-up ability with his frequent shots, the results are staggering.

In terms of creating shots (whether individually or through passing), Pominville ranked in the NHL’s top-20. Look at some of the names surrounding him: Alex Ovechkin, Claude Giroux, Taylor Hall — many of the elite offensive players in the league.

So why doesn’t Pominville’s results match his strong underlying numbers?

Part of it has to be a decline in shooting ability. Luck almost certainly was a factor these last two seasons, but the days of Pominville shooting 12 percent appear over.

Similarly, it would be silly to dismiss the human element of his impossibly long goalless streak to begin the year. As those 21 games marched on, his frustration became palpable and he became more reluctant to shoot.

But perhaps the biggest issue is Mikael Granlund appeared to have an adverse effect on Pominville. Granlund could find Pominville in shooting positions, but he was a complete non-threat to shoot himself. That meant that Granlund not only wasted Pominville’s passing ability, but him not shooting meant defenders could cheat toward Pominville.

This wasn’t as much of an issue in 2014-15, when Pominville could make use of Parise, an elite shooter. But the burden of producing that line’s offense fell squarely on Pominville, as Parise struggled with injury last year. Pominville struggled and coaches were extremely slow to adjust. Granlund and Pominville played almost 700 5-on-5 minutes together last year, during which Pominville recorded just 12 points.

Pominville’s play immediately improved once he got new linemates. This was because Erik Haula and Nino Niederreiter complimented Pominville’s skills. Not only were both willing to shoot when Pominville’s passes found them, but Haula brought elite speed to the table, while Niederreiter could win board battles and provide elite defense.

So where do we go from here? What can fans expect from Pominville next season?

Fortunately, we have a pretty realistic scenario on-hand. Here’s the stat-line Pominville was able to produce once he scored his first goal (includes playoffs).

60 Games Played (15:46 Average Time on Ice), 15 Goals, 18 Assists, 156 Shots on Goal

That’s a sample that includes some highs (Pominville’s February hot streak and playoff performance) and lows (two points in 23 games prior to Mike Yeo’s dismissal). Pominville’s shooting percentage in that time was 9.6 percent, the mid-point between his career average prior to 2014-15 and the struggles of these last two seasons.

If we project this to 82 games, Pominville would have 20 goals on 213 shots and 45 total points. Not worthy of that hefty $5.6 million cap hit, but not a complete albatross, either.

Of course, it’s possible that his spike in production alongside Haula and Niederreiter was a dead cat bounce. But this just doesn’t look like the kind of rapid decline Dany Heatley experienced in Minnesota.

Pominville still has the ability to create offense, whether by getting himself open or finding others in scoring positions. At some point, that should bring some semblance of results with it. While most have written him off, there’s a solid case that Pominville could return to respectability.

Don’t write off Jason Pominville just yet