I won’t pretend to be an expert on systems play but this team is bottom of the barrel when it comes to generating off the rush. I think there’s probably a structured medium between the current approach and Boudreau’s that would juice up Pettersson’s offence a bit, since other successful teams without a McDavid or Kucherov level talent do.I wonder if "current system" is the right way to look at it.
He just seems to do best when the play is free flowing and unstructured, like with Boudreau and most of the Travis Green years. Unfortunately, no successful team plays that way.
The frustrating thing is that his elite defensive instincts allow him to control play within a free flowing system. He drove elite results with Kuzmenko. So what's good for him is bad for the rest of the team, and vice versa. You wonder how he would have developed if he'd come into the league on a team with more structure.
But in the current system at even strength it looks like he’s going to need linemates who can create more for him off the boards if he’s going to go back to scoring goals like he did in 22/23 and the first half of last year.