He’s no elite sniper. However if we simply take his avg sh% and shots/60 before this year, he could have had 5 more 5v5 goals just on that. Now he’s a 50pt player. He also would have probably got a few more assists as well from rebounds/deflections/tips had he been shooting more as well. Also does not consider any points he could have had 4v4, in OT etc if he was just his average self.
When you consider this was Hertls worst year for shots/60 and 5v5 sh%, yeah gunna say he had some poorer than usual luck.
Either that, or he shouldn’t play with Cooch as I’ve been saying because they don’t jive offensively, nor do they both play a possession game.
It’s probably a bit of both.
Couture/Hertl is an interesting concept.
Historically, Couture does best with a strong F1 on his LW and a skilled, shifty playmaking right-handed RW. Marleau-Couture-Havlat, Marleau-Couture-Donskoi, Hertl-Couture-Donskoi, etc. Couture tends to get caved in, possession wise, when he doesn’t have that strong LW on his side, but he does fairly well when he does have that LW. Luckily, the way our team is built, we’ve got Hertl and Meier who both are that strong possession LW. I think Kane also fits the bill but I would need to see some more of him with Couture to say for sure. Kane has strong possession metrics but I’m not sure that he can provide Couture with the “heavy possession game” that Hertl/Marleau/Clowe have provided him with the past. I’m confident that Meier can do that for sure.
As soon as Thornton went down, we were pretty much forced to staple Hertl to Couture’s hip and have them take on top matchups. Similar to Vlasic-Braun, Hertl-Couture-X pretty much had to take on so much defensive responsibility that every other line (or pair in Vlasic/Braun’s case) could be sheltered or deployed in a heavily offensive situation. Part of this, IMO, was caused by errors from PDB playing DeMelo over Heed, Martin over Ryan, and Kane with Pavelski-Donskoi over Meier, but a big part of it was that we really did have a fairly weak and depleted roster and a lot of players that needed to be sheltered. Quite honestly, given the way they were deployed, it’s hilarious to think that Hertl-Couture were still our best line with the likes of Mikkel freaking Boedker as their top-line playmaking RW. I know that Couture-Hertl didn’t score as much as they should have in the regular season, but they had a revolving door of less than first line playmaking RWs and they were deployed super defensively after Thornton went down. If they can take on top comp and shelter our players the way they did in the playoffs, I want to keep them together. I also think they can score and control play better with an RW who is better than Boedker. I think the main reason that those guys didn’t jive well offensively was because they were both deployed in a very defensive role. I think their chemistry is just fine.
If you’re playing Hertl with Thornton, they’re certainly our top line and they’re taking on the toughest matchups. They’ll almost certainly have Pavelski playing as the RW and I don’t think that a 39 year old Thornton and 34 year old Pavelski are going to be able to handle that type of deployment at all. They won’t have to be deployed as defensively as Couture-Hertl were this season but they will still be the top guys for any head to head matchups and I don’t think they can handle it. Hertl-Couture-Donskoi can at least be deployed defensively, take on top competition, and produce at a decent rate. Doing that opens up easier matchups for some of our more defensively challenged players to produce. If you want to shift Hertl to the RW, Couture to the LW, and bring Thornton in as the pivot on a Couture-Thornton-Hertl line, that’s fine by me. But I think Couture needs Hertl’s possession game to be successful at this point. Couture might be able to survive with Meier or Kane doing the heavy lifting, possession wise, but I think the rest of the team needs Hertl and Couture together doing the majority of the defensive heavy lifting. And I think that if you played Couture and Hertl with a stronger playmaker and/or deployed them in a more offensive role, they would jive together a lot better offensively.
Couture-Thornton-Hertl
Meier-Pavelski-Donskoi
Kane-Tierney-LaBanc
Sorensen-Suomela-Goodrow
I loved Meier-Pavelski-Donskoi when they were together and I’m convinced that they never should have been broken up, so I wouldn’t be against trying them together.