When I last looked in on Sean Couturier, his Drummondville Voltigeurs were reveling in a four-game sweep of Chicoutimi in the QMJHL playoffs:

Sean Couturier's Drummondville Voltigeurs swept through the first round of the QMJHL playoffs, outscoring the Chicoutimi Saguenéens 21-12. Couturier scored 3 times and tallied 5 assists for 8 points in the four games. He posted 9 dangerous shots in those four games, or 2.25 per game. That's slightly lower, but not significant, than his 2.379 dangerous shots per game in the regular season, but those 9 DS accounted for 13.8% of Drummondville's total, slightly higher than his 11.2% in the regular season, but again, it's not significant.

What intrigues me about Couturier's performance in this series is his 24.25 faceoffs per game. He took 97 faceoffs and won 56 of them for a faceoff percentage of 57.7%

He was dominant in all aspects of the game. The Voltiguers started their second-round series against the Gatineau Olympiques the way they'd ended their first - Drummondville jumped out to a 2-0 series lead. Couturier, however, slowed significantly. Gatineau not only climbed back into the series, they won four games in a row to knock Drummondville from the playoffs.

In the six game series, Couturier scored three goals - his only points. His 57.7% performance in the circle against Chicoutimi was a distant memory because Couturier won only 56 faceoffs while losing 82 - a .406 faceoff percentage. Even his shots / game rate fell from 4.75 to 3.17. It was a brutal series for Couturier.

The lone bright spot for Couturier was his ability to generate scoring chances. In six games against Gatineau, he generated 17 scoring chances, or 2.8 / game, compared to his 2.25 / game against Chicoutimi. The Voltigeurs were able to generate only 78 chances as a team over the six games (compared with 65 chances in four games in the first round), meaning Couturier accounted for 21.8% of all of Drummondville's scoring chances, compared 9.1% in the first round.