This was interesting:
Sean Couturier could someday be a legit Selke candidate because of his defensive, shutdown ability. Yet a Selke candidate has to show some offense too, and he seems content with “defense first.” Do you feel you are getting enough offense out of a guy who had back-to-back 96-point seasons in junior? He’s capable of a lot more.
Hextall: I agree 100 percent. I’ve talked about that this summer. Our biggest upside is up front with Brayden [Schenn] and Sean. Sean, you love what he does, the unselfishness, the team first, loving the challenge of playing against the other team’s top line. That’s awesome stuff.
Typically, a young player learns the defensive part after the offensive part. Coots in juniors was equally good on offense as defense, but up here, obviously, his defensive game is ahead of his offensive game. There’s another level. A couple of levels for Coots and you’re damn right, we expect it. He needs to push harder north. It’s a little bit of a mentality, a little bit of an attitude, but there’s going to be expectations placed on him that haven’t been [there] up to this point. He’s a young player and rightfully so, there has not been expectations from him to produce at a high level, but he’s been in the league long enough now where he needs to push the bar, offensively.
