You’ve seen that in preseason. Puljujarvi being able to be the second guy to McDavid with Hyman to help clear space, opened up Puljujarvis game entirely and allowed his offensive game to show. With McDrai he plays the third man and just has to try clear space and stay out of the way which is a waste.
If you wanna play McDrai together give them someone like Kassian or Yamamoto that have lesser offensive talents but can clear space.
Hyman - RNH - Yamamoto are all guys who help offensive talents but aren’t that on their own. So the current top line wastes Puljujarvi and the second line is going to produce little for offence. So we will be relying on McDrais line for 99% of our offence.
The thing with the RNH-Yamamoto duo as well as that they are low volume shot creators so it negates one of Hyman's biggest strengths cleaning up the garbage in front. At least with Pulju, you know more shots will get to the net.
I can tell right now that this line will cycle a lot and probably do well with possession but not create many high danger chances which would be great for a 3rd line but not a 2nd line. The 3rd line is similar actually, lots of cycling and offensive zone time but not much scoring touch.
These combos wreak of a couple of things. That McDavid and Draisaitl are pushing the coach to play together and/or they are trying to keep the Puljujarvi and Yamamoto contracts down because these combos don't really make sense at least to start a season.
Try it if the split center thing doesn't work for the first 10 or so games but to go to McDrai right off the bat just feels like lazy coaching to me and a formula that clearly hasn't worked in the past in terms of long term success.