Yeah, I think it often works the other way around-- a line having a strong unified identity where everyone is on the same wavelength can add a lot.
Even Pettersson - Mikheyev, I'm not too crazy about for similar reasons (although parts of Pettersson's strengths work with him, it would be a total waste of Pettersson's creativity, IMO).
I prefer Mikheyev with Horvat. A defensively aware pure rushing and net driving line, almost, that is directly difficult to handle. Similar to keeping Raymond with Kesler.
Yeah. When it comes to chemistry, you never
really know until it hits the ice. Sometimes weird stuff happens. But on paper at least, everything about Mikheyev's game just screams "perfect winger for Horvat". They both have that same sort of mentality and approach to attacking offensively. Just attacking with speed, power, and directness. It's a very "direct" and "abrupt" sort of offensive mode. He's also obviously a good match for more of a "defensive line" with Horvat.
In the same sense, i feel like if you want to get the most out of Boeser, he should really be stapled to Pettersson. The only one who really has that vision to create and set up the shooting opportunities he needs to be successful. The same sort of "slow the game down to our speed" approach offensively. Guys you really want to put in offensive zone situations as much as possible.
Then i think you have Miller-Garland as that third "duo" to anchor a line. They work great together. Again, they have a very aligned approach to generating offense. It's all about cycling around, winning those battles down low to control the puck and getting to the net area. Garland's playmaking skew works really well with Miller's game. There's just a lot of synergy there.
So you've got your "3 Scoring Lines" each 2/3rds settled. The other wingers can just sorta float between them. See what works. Use those "extra wingers" to swap around and spark things if it gets stale. The 4th line shouldn't really see much even strength ice, but it's a fine place to stash some PKers and whoever isn't going well, or in the doghouse for a stretch.
???-Pettersson-Boeser
???-Miller-Garland
???-Horvat-Mikheyev
?#?#?#?#?#?#?#?#?#?
As a starting point: Podkolzin makes a lot of sense as a starting point with Petey/Brock as a sort of yeoman doing the spadework. Pearson makes sense as a sort of big body filler who plays a somewhat similar down low possession game pretty well with JT/Garland. That just leaves the Bo/Ilya duo, where i still honestly think Hoglander could be a good fit. But Kuzmenko is a total wildcard to me, and might end up taking that spot. But i think these are mostly the guys you shuffled around to try to give a line a bit of a spark or a different look/approach to shake things up a bit if/when it goes stale.