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Penn State hockey arena beginning to look like hockey arena

2013-05-24T20:27:30Z

Last season, Penn State began their foray into Division 1 ice hockey when the Nittany Lions made the jump to the NCAA from the club ranks, but it didn't really feel completely big league. They played in the tiny Greenberg Ice Pavilion, they didn't really play a tough schedule, they weren't very good and they didn't have a conference to call home.

That all changes this fall when the team hits the ice at the brand-new, $88 million Pegula Ice Arena as a first-year member of the newly minted Big Ten Hockey Conference. Terry Pegula, the natural gas magnate, PSU alum and owner of the Buffalo Sabres, paid for the arena project that broke ground in February 2012, and it'll be ready in time for the 2013-14 Nittany Lions season.

It's getting there already. Via OxBlue and the official construction webcam, here's are GIFs of the progress both inside and outside the arena since groundbreaking:

Lookin' good. The arena, which will hold about 6,000 fans, is set to be ready by early September. PSU's full 2013-14 schedule isn't out quite yet, but we do know they'll host Army in a home game on Friday night, October 11, likely the first Division 1 mens game at the new arena. The football team hosts Michigan the following day, so if you're a fan of Penn State athletics or just college sports in general, it might not be a bad weekend to make a trip to State College.

The Nittany Lions will play at the Wells Fargo Center yet again on October 26 of this year in what they're calling the second-annual Philadelphia College Hockey Showcase. Vermont -- the school where Nick Luukko, son of Flyers president Peter Luukko, plays -- will again be the opponent.

Back on January 19, a lockout-fueled crowd of 19,000+ filled the WFC for the game. It was the largest crowd ever assembled for a college game in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania -- even larger than the crowds that gathered in Pittsburgh for the Frozen Four this past April.

Philadelphia will host the 2014 Frozen Four. Chances of Penn State making it are very, very slim with what's expected to be another weak out-of-conference schedule and a very tough in-conference slate.

Will Scott Hartnell bounce back from a tough 2013 season?

2013-05-24T16:15:18Z

Here's Exhibit #8734652349 in the file of "why you don't react too much to one year's worth of surprising results."

At this time last year, the question about Scott Hartnell was whether or not his career year in the 2011-12 season was worthy of a contract extension. As you probably heard, he got said contract extension.

Now, after a 2013 season featuring significantly worse results and injury troubles, the question among a lot of fans seems to be how long until his new contract runs out -- or, for some, whether he's a candidate for a compliance buyout.

So how are things looking for Hartnell as he heads into the first year of his new deal? Let's break this into three questions and find out.

1. What worked last year for Hartnell that didn't this year?

Before Hartnell signed his extension, Eric wrote the piece linked above that talked about how Hartnell had improved last season. In essence, it came down to a drastically improved shot rate on the power play. That jump, coupled with a slight increase in Hartnell's already-high power play shooting percentage, helped him along to his career year, while his even-strength numbers had actually remained fairly constant to years past.

This year? Let's start on the power play. If we add another row (and column) to that table from last year...

Year	5v4 TOI/G	5v4 goals	5v4 shots on goal	5v4 shooting percentage	5v4 shots per game
2008-09	2.32	6	21	28.6%	0.26
2009-10	2.67	8	32	25.0%	0.40
2010-11	2.75	4	19	21.1%	0.23
2011-12	3.06	15	57	26.3%	0.70
2013	2.89	4	19	21.1%	0.59

His shot rates with the man advantage weren't quite where they were last season, but they were close, and well above the mark set in any season prior to last season. His shooting percentage was down a bit, but over the span of 19 shots that'd only cost him a single goal over the span of 32 games. So the high shot rate is still fairly encouraging.

The even-strength numbers, though, are a bit less optimistic.

Year	Goals/60	Primary assists/60	Points/60
2008-09	1.26	0.66	2.47
2009-10	0.36	0.89	1.79
2010-11	1.13	0.54	2.16
2011-12	1.04	0.52	2.13
2013	0.60	0.30	0.90

Hartnell's rate production at even strength was by far the lowest it's been in a while, and given that even strength is, y'know, the state at which hockey games are mostly played, that's the biggest explanation as for why his numbers fell off. We all saw Laviolette shifting him around lines a lot this year -- from the top line with Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek to the second line with Brayden Schenn and Wayne Simmonds, with a few trips to the third and even the fourth line here and there -- but no matter who it was, none of his five most frequent linemates (sorted below by 5v5 ice time with Hartnell) really got him going on the ice this year the way Giroux and Jaromir Jagr did last year:

Linemate	Hartnell's P/60 with linemate
Claude Giroux	1.22
Jakub Voracek	1.37
Brayden Schenn	0.81
Wayne Simmonds	0.00
Danny Briere	1.45

He also lost 16 games to injury thanks to a broken foot, which isn't something that typically happens to him given that he'd missed all of three games in his five-year Flyers career heading into 2013. Not to mention, he came back from that injury a bit quicker than I think most of us anticipated, and it looked like it may have slowed him down some on the ice.

2. Can we expect him to bounce back?

We sure can. We've already discussed how individual and on-ice shooting percentages affect scoring rates, and how that affected one Flyers forward already this season. Turns out Sean Couturier wasn't the only one bit by the shooting percentage bug this year:

Year	5v5 Shooting %	Points/60
2008-09	10.47	2.47
2009-10	7.39	1.79
2010-11	10.69	2.16
2011-12	9.76	2.13
2013	6.03	0.90

You can see how Hartnell's percentages dropped substantially from what they've been in recent years, which obviously plays a huge role in his struggles this season. While we know that shooting percentages can drop as players age, Hartnell's only just finishing his age-30 season, and to expect that his numbers will drop four percentage points at this point in his career isn't realistic. Even if he's not shooting around 10% at 5-on-5 or 28% on the power play, his percentages should creep back up a bit and his scoring totals should as well.

We'd have more to worry about if he was putting significantly less shots on net than he was in the past, but that's only really the case if you look at last season. Across all situations, Hartnell tallied 2.31 shots on goal per game this year; that mark -- despite being well behind last year's mark of 2.83 -- was the third-highest single-season number in his six-year Flyers career. If that had dropped off, we'd have some reason for concern, but the fact that it didn't leads us to think that the majority of his dropoff this year was based on the percentages.

And it's worth noting that he's not likely to miss significant time due to injury again. Sure, anyone can, especially a player in his 30s, but Hartnell's injury history (or lack thereof) gives us reason to think he'll likely not miss much time the way he did this year.

3. Where are the signs that he won't bounce back?

As we said last year when it was signed, the biggest question with Hartnell at this point is pretty much with how he ages through the length of his contract. Guys with similar patterns of production generally don't put up excellent numbers through their 31 through 36 seasons, so it's true that Hartnell's not off to a great start if he's hoping to avoid that aging curve.

If you think his drops in shots and shooting percentage are due in large part to his additional year of age, then yeah, you probably think that his performance this year is a good predictor of what's going forward. (For what it's worth, I think that captures maybe a small part of it, but certainly not all of it.)

Ultimately, I think that the thing to ask there is what exactly you would mean by "bounce back." If you're defining that as what he did in his 37-goal, 67-point year in 2011-12, you might end up disappointed. But if you're looking more at his 82-game averages in recent years of around 26 goals and 26 assists, there's a good chance that he'll find himself around there next year if he stays healthy.

It all comes back to last season, his career year, and that contract extension, which was obviously based in large part on his career year. A look at the percentages and numbers last year would've told you Hartnell probably wasn't going to put up 67 points again; unfortunately, things swung almost completely in the opposite direction, which led to a lot of the disappointment that fans seem to have with Hartnell.

As for the contract, the big concern there -- as we wrote at the time -- was for the last two or three seasons of it, when Hartnell will be in his 34 to 36-year old seasons where productive wingers like himself typically fall off the map. Those concerns are still there, and yeah, the down year this year doesn't do anything to quell them.

However, if he can find some better luck, better health, and some semi-consistent linemates, we should expect this season to be more of a blip than a sign of things to come -- at least in the next couple of years -- for Hartnell.

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Friday Morning Fly By: No brooms for the Broons.

2013-05-24T10:00:03Z

*The Rangers hold off the sweep, and Bruins fans everywhere get a little nervous about 3-0 series leads. A glorious amount of hockey last night!

*So we really are saying goodbye to little Danny Briere. I, for one, will miss his fist pump. (BSH)

*Eric Wellwood is starting his long road back after his horrifying injury. (Philly.com)

*There are few things better in this world than a big, fluffy, ginger hockey beard. (Puck Daddy)

*It's official: Patrick Roy is the new head coach of the Avalanche. (SB Nation)

*Meltzer takes a look at the Flyers' history of second round draft picks. (Hockeybuzz)

*The Avs fans study NHL defensemen drafted in the top ten in the last decade. (Mile High Hockey)

*The Blue Jackets have yet to make any progress in contract talks with Bob. (Dispatch)

*Daniel Alfredsson dropped some hard reality on his team via the media. (Puck Daddy)

*Both the Dallas Stars and the Carolina Hurricanes will unveil new jerseys June 4. (Icethetics)

*DGB with the ten greatest moments from this, the least-loved round of the NHL playoffs. (Grantland)

Danny Briere preparing for buyout from Flyers

2013-05-23T20:18:04Z

The buyout of Danny Briere makes a ton of sense for a ton of reasons, namely:

* He's not very good anymore. We already know he's a weak defensive player, and the last two seasons have been by far his least productive offensively since he came to Philadelphia in 2007. He can score in the playoffs, but you need to get to the playoffs for that to work.

* He's expensive, not in real dollars but in a $6.5 million cap hit over the next two seasons.

* The Flyers could use the savings. The salary cap is dropping to $64.3 million next year and they already have $70.3 million committed to the roster. Gotta cut down somewhere.

But just because it makes sense doesn't mean the Flyers will do it, and Briere's buyout remains perhaps the biggest question facing the team this offseason. Will they buy him out? Well, he thinks they will.

Ran into Daniel Briere last night. He's pretty sure the Flyers are going to buy him out. He wants to stay.
— steve simmons (@simmonssteve) May 23, 2013

It's a bit complicated for Briere. When he signed here in 2007, it was no doubt with the intention of finishing his career in Philadelphia, and a buyout would change all of that. He has two young sons and has roots down in the Delaware Valley. Picking up and moving to a new city at this stage in his life is not something that he wants to do for reasons we can all understand.

But hockey doesn't care about the lives of its players, nor does the business of hockey, and Briere seems to be coming to terms with the fact that he could have to make that move. The Flyers would probably prefer to trade him instead of buying him out, considering that even with a buyout, they will still owe him a bit of money until his current contract expires.

There are probably a few teams that would be interested in acquiring him via trade even despite his cap hit, but there was a reason Briere didn't waive his no-trade clause back at the trade deadline, and he's not likely to do so now. For starters, if he's bought out he'll become a free agent and will have the choice to pick from any team in the league that's interested. He'll get a new contract as well, obviously, and he'll still be making money from the Flyers. He has more control over the situation AND more money. Hard to imagine him putting that control in Paul Holmgren's hands.

Thursday Morning Fly By: You had ONE THING to do, Senators!

2013-05-23T10:00:06Z

*Do you think Pierre gets sulky when he has to work Rangers games instead of Pens games? I bet he does. Last night's action!

*BSH user GagneFan4Life would like you to know that there are spots available in the BSH NHL13 League for PS3.

*Reviewing Scott Hartnell's 2013 season. (Flyers Faithful)

*SLOW DOWN, JAKUB. (BSH)

*A hilarious list of things more effective than the Rangers power play. (Blueshirt Banter)

*Meltzer's talkin' 'bout prospects. (Hockeybuzz)

*ASF on Matt Read's time representing Canada at the Worlds. (Flyers)

*The Canucks fired their whole coaching staff. (Nucks Misconduct)

*On the heels of Glenn Healy's assessment of Pavel Datsyuk's talent, TSN put together a list of the ten best Datsyuk dangles. (Winging It in Motown)

*How's about Hunter Shinkaruk in a Flyers sweater on draft day? (Flyers Faithful)

*Here's one for the ladies: the most stylish men in hockey. (Sharp)

*This Canucks superfan spent a year as a Florida Panthers season ticket holder. Hilarity ensued. (Cave Mag)

Jakub Voracek not hurt after scary car accident in Czech Republic

2013-05-22T16:15:51Z

Jake Voracek is thankfully not injured after a terrifying car accident in the Czech Republic on Wednesday. The Flyers confirmed the news, first reported by Czech publication iSport, that Voracek collided his blue Ferrari with a truck on a road near Kladno, his hometown.

"I spoke with Jake this morning," Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren said in a statement. "He was involved in a car accident in the Czech Republic. Although his car did suffer damage, there were no injuries. Jake is fine."

The car "suffering damage" is putting it lightly, as you can see above courtesy of the local police. iSport has even more scary photos over on their site.

It appears as though the accident was Voracek's fault. The truck was travelling the opposite direction on the narrow road and slowed down, while Voracek was speeding and couldn't slow down in time to avoid a collision.

As you can see in the photos on the iSport page, the front of the truck on the drivers side shows damage, indicating that Voracek's car clipped the front of the truck before spinning into the ditch on the side of the road. A rough translation of the iSport story says that alcohol was not a factor. The driver of the truck was uninjured as well, thankfully.

This feeling is all too reminiscent for us. Just three summers ago, Danny Briere and his son Cameron were traveling home from Philadelphia to Quebec when Briere dozed off on Interstate 81 near Binghamton, N.Y., side-swiping a tractor trailer and barely avoiding tragedy.

And of course, we'll never forget the tragic story of Pelle Lindbergh, who died when, after a night of drinking with teammates in 1985, he crashed his Porsche into a wall on Somerdale Road in Camden County.

Wednesday Morning Fly By: Are the Rangers even TRYING anymore?

2013-05-22T10:00:02Z

*I know we've decided the Bruins are better equipped to beat the Penguins but rooting for them is difficult. Lucky for them the Rangers have rolled over. Hockeytimes recaps!

*Analyzing Cooter's offensive game. (BSH)

*Reviewing Zac Rinaldo's season. (Flyers Faithful)

*Glenn Healy: "Pavel Datsyuk may not be naturally gifted..." Hockey fans: "LOL WHAT" (Puck Daddy)

*Meltzer with some excellence on Hartnell's pretty terrible 2013 season. (Hockeybuzz)

*A little more on Gus from ASF. (Flyers)

*Rumor has it that the great Patrick Roy will be the next coach of the Colorado Avalanche. The Avs make no official comment.

*Martin Brodeur's smug round face will be joining the Hockey Night in Canada team. Here's hoping he borrows some of Cherry's fancy suits. (CBC)

*Top 50 NHL trade value rankings. (Angus Certified)

*(Addition by Eric T.) The Kings told TSN that Corsi was their biggest concern last night. (NHL Numbers)

*Pens beat writers complaining about Iginla's point-per-game playoff performance because it's happening on the left-wing. Because why not. (TribLive)

Preaching patience: Analyzing Sean Couturier's offensive woes in 2013

2013-05-21T17:03:14Z

Let me first say this: right now, as you read this piece, Sean Couturier is one of the best defensive forwards in the National Hockey League, despite being all of 20 years old. Any criticism of him otherwise should be noted in light of this fact, because it's a fairly incredible one, and he could be scoring ten points a season and still be pretty valuable with his defensive talents.

But if you read this site on a semi-regular basis, you already know that fact, so this post isn't going to talk very much about Corsi or zone starts or all of that. The post linked in the previous paragraph posed the question of how much offensive potential Sean Couturier has, and that's a question that's on everyone's mind following this season.

I think some of the critiques lobbed his way this season are a bit harsh, and I still haven't seen anything written about him since roughly March that didn't have the phrase "sophomore slump" in it somewhere, which is annoying. But his offensive game wasn't where we wanted it to be this year, and that's near impossible to deny.

So let's talk a bit about the guy who's gone from "unanticipated surprise of the Jeff Carter trade" to "untouchable, even for Shea Weber" to "disappointing sophomore forward who can't score".

***

First of all, it's worth noting that Couturier's total point production really didn't fall off much at all from last year to this year. He went from a rookie year output of 0.35 points per game to 0.33 per game this year. There was a dropoff at even strength (1.81 P/60 last year to 1.14 this year), but improved performance on the PP (1.73 P/60 last year, 3.51 this year) helped close that gap.

Granted, it's fair to expect him to take a step forward in his 19/20-year old season, compared to his 18/19-year old one, so that can be seen as disappointing regardless. But it's not as though he was that much worse than last year.

When looking at surprising point totals (in either direction), we also try to consider shooting percentage, since -- as our own Eric T. recently pointed out -- year-to-year fluctuation there can frequently and drastically affect a player's scoring. You can pretty plainly see that those numbers trended in the wrong direction for Couturier this year. (percentages from behindthenet.ca)

	5v5 Individual Shooting %	5v5 On-Ice Shooting %	5v4 On-Ice Shooting %
2011-12	9.1%	9.6%	15.0%
2013	4.3%	7.3%	12.5%

If his percentages had all matched what they were last year, we'd have seen a noticeable bump in his point totals -- the bump in his own shooting percentage is worth at another three goals or so on its own, and he'd pick up at least a couple of assists if his on-ice percentages were in line with those of previous years. So while his point totals were down, his luck was way, way down.

***

One thing that frustrated Flyers fans last year was the fact that Couturier spent far, far too much time saddled with linemates simply not up to his offensive skill level. As you probably know, that trend continued this year. Here are his most frequent icemates (among forwards), via stats.hockeyanalysis.com:

Player	Ice Time	% of Couturier's time
Maxime Talbot	176:07	34.2%
Matt Read	164:56	32.0%
Mike Knuble	123:29	24.0%
Zac Rinaldo	89:22	17.3%
Ruslan Fedotenko	75:58	14.7%
Danny Briere	63:48	12.4%
Wayne Simmonds	61:12	11.9%
Simon Gagne	60:02	11.7%
Jakub Voracek	59:25	11.5%
Scott Hartnell	40:42	7.9%
Adam Hall	40:02	7.8%
Jay Rosehill	23:27	4.6%
Tye McGinn	18:31	3.6%
Claude Giroux	9:51	1.9%
Harry Zolnierczyk	9:08	1.8%
Brayden Schenn	8:14	1.6%

Among his five most frequent linemates, only one of them -- Matt Read -- exhibited much in the way of offensive talent this year, maybe two if you also include Knuble. It's one thing to put the guy in a defensively-oriented position; it's another to essentially neuter any offensive skill there by repeatedly putting him on a line with fourth-line guys.

So the question then becomes: how much better did he look, offensively, when he was on the ice with quality offensive players? Couturier scored four 5-on-5 goals and tallied six 5-on-5 assists this year. Here are the forwards who were on the ice with him when he tallied each of those points.

	Couturier's goals on-ice for	Couturier's assists on-ice for	Points on-ice for
Read	2	4	6
Voracek	2	1	3
Simmonds	1	2	3
Knuble	0	2	2
Talbot	1	1	2
Fedotenko	1	0	1
Gagne	1	0	1
Hall	0	1	1
Rosehill	0	1	1

The top three forwards when it came to helping Couturier get points were (a) all fairly skilled offensive wingers and were (b) second, seventh, and ninth on the list of his most frequent linemates. If we put that into P/60 form, including all players on the ice for at least two Couturier points (with the reminder that Couturier himself was around 1.14 P/60)...

	TOI w/Couturier	P/60
Jakub Voracek	59.42	3.03
Wayne Simmonds	61.20	2.94
Matt Read	164.93	2.18
Simon Gagne	60.03	1.00
Mike Knuble	123.48	0.97
Ruslan Fedotenko	75.97	0.79
Maxime Talbot	176.12	0.68

To put those results for Voracek and Simmonds into perspective: in the 2011-12 season Claude Giroux scored 2.73 points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5. When put with a few decent players on his wing, Couturier was -- at times -- scoring at even higher rates than Giroux during his breakout season.

Or, put another way: Couturier's scoring pace while on the ice with Voracek would've made him the eighth-highest scoring forward in the league, per 60, at 5-on-5. Moderately impressive.

Granted, we're having a bit of fun with small samples here, but with the limited numbers we have, we've absolutely got a reason to believe that playing with more skilled linemates will, in fact, help his offensive output.

***

Even besides the linemate issues, one of the more maddening things we saw this year was the way that Couturier's ice time was handled by Peter Laviolette. There are two points I want to single out here.

The first one was a lot less significant long-term, I'd think, but it's worth noting: after spending the first quarter or so of the season with mostly-talented linemates (a bit of Voracek, some Matt Read, a pinch of Tye McGinn, to go with guys like Knuble and Talbot), Couturier missed two games with the flu on February 11 and 12. In the game that followed -- a contest on February 15 with New Jersey -- he found himself getting slightly fewer minutes than before, and on the fourth line with Talbot and Rinaldo. That trend would continue for a few more games, and though his ice time would be pulled back up by a performance against Pittsburgh on February 20 that included six shots on net, it's still a bit perplexing why Laviolette would bring Couturier back from something like the flu and place him on the fourth line.

But the more noticeable shift came a couple of weeks later. The day after Simon Gagne's triumphant return to Philadelphia, Couturier and Gagne found themselves paired on a line together with Max Talbot. In Gagne's first two games back (on February 27 against Washington and March 2 against Ottawa), those three guys, while on the ice together, combined for 15 shots on goal, and did so in roughly 21 total minutes of ice time together. That is very impressive for a third line, and while none of those shots went in the net, they sure were knocking on the door a lot.

In the game following -- a 4-2 loss to the Rangers -- the unit managed only two shots, with Couturier picking up none. Laviolette shifted the lines around the next game against Pittsburgh, putting Read in Talbot's place, and while that's not a move to complain about, the problem came when Laviolette parked Couturier on the bench for all but two shifts in the final 25 minutes or so of the game, all after he failed to make a play defensively on the game-tying goal. (He did not register a shot on goal again in that game, nor did he in the following game at Boston.)

While he'd been stuck in an offensive drought for a while, that game marked the point where everything really fell off for him. You could see it in his ice time -- before that Pittsburgh game, he had only played less than 14:54 of ice time once; beginning with that game, he wouldn't top that mark again at any point in the next eight games.

In turn, his offensive problems stopped being just luck- and shooting-related and started also being production-related. Beginning around the time of that one series of games, his shot numbers would plummet, bottoming out in late March in a game against the Islanders.

Fortunately, things picked up a bit in the season's final month. In the game following THAT contest, he would pick up an assist against Boston, and it appeared that was all that Laviolette needed to see, as his ice time would continue to increase fairly steadily the rest of the season beyond that. (That point also began a stretch of seven points in 15 games for Couturier, helping him end the season on a pretty good note despite spending a lot of time alongside Adam Hall and Jay Rosehill.)

So let's sum all of that up, then. Marking the important dates there, here are Couturier's 10-game rolling averages for shots on goal per game:

And here they are for his average ice time and shifts per game:

You can sort of see how the lines in both of those graphs fall off a bit after the first and second vertical lines, and bottom out at/go back up after the third one.

Essentially -- and here's what the problem boils down to -- Laviolette would tend to make some fairly kneejerk decisions when it came to Couturier, whether it involved giving him less ice time (returning from the flu to be placed on the fourth line, getting benched after the bad Pittsburgh game) or giving him more (i.e. deciding he was worth top-9 minutes again immediately after breaking his scoring slump -- not that I necessarily have a problem with that, but the thought process troubles me a bit). And if you look at both of those, his drop in ice time almost perfectly coincided with his drop in shots on net. The guy's not gonna get chances if he doesn't play.

***

So the moral out of all of this is pretty much just "patience", isn't it? It became fairly evident once he hit his rough patch that people's expectations of him were probably too high this year, likely based in no small part on his success against Pittsburgh in last year's postseason. He's still just 20 and is learning a lot on both sides of the ice, and a little bit of patience (and a little less kneejerkishness) on the part of the coaching staff would go a long way with him.

Couturier's shown he can put up points when surrounded by decent linemates, as guys like Voracek and Read and Simmonds can attest to. He's shown he can at least get shots to the net when put with guys who are maybe a step down from that, like Talbot or Gagne. And yes, he does a fantastic job of controlling play and possession despite facing some of the toughest defensive situations among forwards in the NHL.

Even if almost nothing changes from this year to next, and the same maddening patterns of playing time and linemates continue next year, we can probably expect a bump in his scoring rates solely on the basis of his crappy luck this year. But if Laviolette and company want to try keeping his minutes fairly steady, surrounding him with some fairly competent two-way forwards, and not reacting too much in either direction to the good or the bad that may come of it, his scoring numbers should reflect that and he'll be fine.

Exactly how fine he'll be is still a debate worth having. Those P/60 numbers with guys like Voracek and Read, while impressive, are also in a fairly small sample, and again, Eric showed back in February that guys who are asked to take on the kinds of assignments he's been asked to take on generally don't end up being big-time scorers. So while he'd still be valuable if he's in those situations, we may have to temper our expectations of him as an elite scoring forward. Or they can ease up on his responsibilities there, pair him with some more offensively-skilled players, and see if what he did with guys like Voracek and Simmonds is repeatable.

But let's not make any mistakes about it: if, despite all the bad luck and mishandling, this is really a "sophomore slump" for Sean Couturier, he's probably going to be fine.