Connor and wheeler and Perfetti all looked better with Schief. Also isn’t that the mark of a good player they make their line mates better.
It's kinda funny so far, Dubois is getting his points but not looking as good doing them whereas Mark is playing excellent all around hockey but the points aren't dropping as much. You could say the opposite happened last year.
I think Conner has looked fine with Dubois and is starting to find his range offensively at 5 on 5 which will elevate the second line. They need a better linemate than Thor though as he has killed so many plays.
Perfetti and Blake just play a style that works better with Mark then PLD. The line is also functioning better than CSW because Perfetti is excellent at leaving the dzone and gaining the ozone with control and that allows the line to set up and get their cycle game going. The biggest issue with the Blake/Scheifele combo the last number of years is they got stuck in their zone and had to chip and retrieve tol much so they had little sustained zone time. Now that they have a linemate that does that job and reads the play offensively like them you have a very good line.
And yet PLD had a xGF% of 33.67 and Connor had a xGF% of 15.50 tonight. I'm really starting to have a problem with that stat.
Yeah I am having a massive issue with XGF as a game like today doesn't take score effects into account. We were handedly winning the underlying matchup until we went up by 5 and the stopped pressing. Whopty do that they got some scoring chances when we took our foot off the gas.