I realised after posting the above that Hornqvist was injured, so I used Commissioner Mode to remove the injury and then dressed him—things get even more bizarre with a full strength roster...
Malkin as a LW on the 1st line. Guentzel demoted to the 3rd line splitting Hagelin and Sheary, who is still stuck on the 4th. And Wilson as a Centre on the 4th. It's all very
And returning to the conversation from earlier, here are the Hagelin's and Sheary's attributes as per my save...
Hagelin
Sheary
You mentioned Hagelin is "extremely fast and good defensively" but according to these he's only 1 point better in overall Speed, but has much less Balance and Stamina than Sheary. With regards his defensive attributes he is only notably better than Sheary in Checking and Defensive Read. Hagelin is also a much
worse player both mentally and offensively.
And this is where it gets confusing. When compared
overall Sheary is a much better player—especially considering both score 4/5 for the Up and Down Winger role—and definitely belongs on a line higher than the 4th, but it appears that the AI has somewhat tunnel vision when it selects players and focuses on just a handful of attributes.