Thanks for posting the analytics on BO, that is very helpful. When BO came out of junior, he was portrayed as being a solid 200' player. He was being compared to Ryan O'Reilly. At 18, that's the player we thought we were getting. Over the years obviously that has changed. He wasn't a great skater coming out of junior, so he spent quite a bit of time improving that area. Not sure what happened to BO, but for whatever reason his hype of being a great 200' player never materialized. He focused more on the offensive end of the ice. Even this year, he spent all summer with Adam Oates to improve his shot.
Maybe BO just felt that to get paid in the NHL, you need to score goals so why spend time focusing on the defensive side? I'm just spit balling here, so don't know if that is true or not. As well, we didn't really have great defensive coaches while BO was a Canuck, so he never really had that opportunity to get the proper coaching to work on his defensive game. At the age of almost 28 it's probably too late for BO to become the next Ryan O'Reilly. He is who he is now. Compare that to Petey, who came out this year guns a blazing, not only transforming into a Selke award contender, but also being ALOT more physical as well. He is basically a complete centre at this point other than the faceoffs, which I have no doubt he will get better at.
BO wanted to get his money by being a 50-goal scorer. Petey is going to get even more money by being one of the more complete centres in the NHL that every team dreams of having. That's the difference between the two of them.