Bruh... That line scored hella in the ~15 games they were together. Bring them back!
I loved that line. That and Donskoi with Couture made my regular season. But Hertl's GF% was bad when he played with Marleau or Ward: 55.6 when together vs 61.3 when apart (61.6 when apart from Ward and 63 when apart from Marleau if looked at separately). Marleau and Ward did a lot better with Hertl though. (40 & 45.5 when apart).
It could be because Marleau and Ward had more Dzone starts when apart from Hertl but probably was bc Hertl spent about ~2.5 times as much time with the Joes as he did with Marleau and Ward.
and bc Marleau and Ward's most frequent linemate was Nieto (285.4 min vs 168.9 min playing with Hertl vs 97.1 playing with Couture). It seems likely since the Marleau - Couture - Ward line had a 50% GF and 50.6% corsi whereas the Nieto - Marleau - Ward line had a 37.5% gf and 55% CF (and the highest percentage of Dzone starts of the lines mentioned).
Their corsi together was amazing: 57.8 together, Hertl apart was 56.3 (very similar to the Hertl-thornton-Pavs line with 56.4; Marleau & Ward apart from Hertl were only ~50) and I really like Hertl at center. I wanted the coaches to keep that line together and would love to see it again this year.
I'm hoping that Meier, Goldobin, Sorensen, or X makes it out of camp and pushes Hertl down to the third line C so it's likely that we'll see that line again. Of course, that might not happen even if a rookie makes the team and injuries could do that as well but those aren't as much fun.
Edit to add: Maybe I'm wrong but I thought they supposedly broke up the Marleau-Hertl-Ward line to reward Hertl by putting him with the Joes and to spark his scoring. Then it worked well so they didn't want to break it up.