Here is Tarasenko's With/Without on ice stats per 60 with Stastny:
Line Stats - Natural Stat Trick
3.11 GF without vs 2.64 together. Worth noting that Tarasenko was used in an offensive role no matter what, but not quite as much when he was with Stastny. His xGF% was better with Stastny than without and the line's on-ice shooting percentage was about 2 points worse with Stastny than when Tarasenko was out with others. Certainly supports the argument that Tarasenko was less capable of finishing the types of plays made by Stastny than he was others.
However, Tarasenko's career best came when his center was about the purest "playmaker" he ever played with. Here are the same types of stats but with Lehtera:
Line Stats - Natural Stat Trick
3.27 GF per 60 vs 2.64 without (strangely identical to his on ice scoring rate with Stastny even though there are about 500 minutes where he wasn't on the ice with either). The xGF% is about half a point worse when Tarasenko was on the ice with Lehtera than without, but the on ice shooting percentage was a whopping 3 points higher when they were on the ice together than when they were apart. These aren't small samples. This is a 3 year sample size where 56.7% of Tarasenko's even strength minutes came with Lehtera. We can't just act like this was a half season hot streak. It's the 3 best statistical seasons of Tarasenko's career and he was overwhelmingly better with Lehtera than without. Lehtera lost a step in his final year here and the magic ended. But it was a hell of a lot more than a half-season run.
I vehemently disagree that he doesn't benefit from a quality playmaker. He was a 37, 40 and 39 goal guy with Lehtera and then was a 33 goal guy in back to back seasons after Lehtera left. His with/without splits with Schwartz are nearly identical from 2017/18-2019/20 (2.95 vs 2.93 on ice GF per 60 ) and his on ice GF per 60 with Schenn isn't as good as it was with Lehtera. He hasn't played tons of minutes with ROR, but those two dominate when they are together (3.41 on ice GF per 60). IN his time as a blue, his best has come playing with Lehtera and ROR. Those happen to be the best two playmakers he's played with (Stas is a better overall player than Lehtera ever was, but Lehtera's playmaking skills were better than Stastny's).
Edit: Honestly, digging into these with/without stats just made me appreciate ROR more than ever. Perron is a negative possession player without ROR and his on-ice GF per 60 goes from 2.11 without ROR to 2.79 with ROR. If Tarasenko is here for camp, I want to see Perron-ROR-Tarasenko to start the year. Break them up for defensive matchups against elite top lines, but let those 3 run wild 75% of the time in the regular season. ROR is good enough defensively to check half the league's top lines without much help and Perron is decent enough defensively to help in that role. Let's see how many Tarasenko can pump into the net with ROR feeding two shooters on either side of him.
Perron-ROR-Tarasenko
Saad-Schenn-Buch
Sanford-Thomas-Kyrou
Mac-Barby-Kostin
Clifford
Let Sanford play the defensive/possession role he played in the top 6 against lesser competition on the 3rd line and give Thomas/Kyrou the green light to get creative in the offensive zone. Shelter them a bit and rely on Saad-Schenn-Buch to play a lot of defense with the ability to drive possession and capitalize on chances with 3 well-above-average shots. 4th line is a bit of a catch all filler line until Sunny is back and you can run a relentless Barby-Sunny-Kostin forecheck machine.
Better yet, sign Bozak to a $1M base salary deal with some GP bonuses, make him the 3LW, slide Sanford into the 4LW, make Mac your 13th F and waive Clifford. A man can dream, right?
