Read on Twitter
The media's obsession with Doughty is that he was once good and isn't a pure offensive defenceman. This means that his decline isn't immediately apparent to them because it's not just point totals going down. https://twitter.com/joshuaS_10/status/1253783807439880193
"Defence" for mainstream hockey media is 60% reputation and 40% time on ice. If you're on a bad team they won't even care about +/- because they can just blame that on teammates.
Like, Drew Doughty was a -34 in 2018-19. I don't remember hearing about that from any mainstream outlets, compared to endless crowing about Karlsson's "struggles." Honestly the first time I read anything negative about him was @domluszczyszyn's contract rankings.
Also, I don't think we can discount that a lot of the hockey media doesn't want guys like Doughty to decline - they want Legends™ because many of them still approach hockey with a romantic narrative. It's more appealing for the Hall of Fame-bound defenceman to be always good.
