Line Combos: 2021-22 lines (Part 2)

[Lshap]

Continued...

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[26Mats]

short of forcing the issue as a clear-cut top-4 player this year (which does not appear likely), no need or reason to keep Guhle in the NHL this season. Another year of Junior to get comfortable in a dominant role/keep working on his overall tools without the pressure & demands of NHL life, should only help him excel further once he cracks the roster.

What makes you say it's unlikely he's a top 4 dman in the NHL right now?

I agree it's unlikely without seeing a soon to be 20 year old play. But, we're now seeing him play, and will throughout the preseason. He played like a number 2 last night.

 

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Ducharme's gonna have a headache with all tne wingers he has.

Something's gotta give.

At this point we have Hoffman and Gallagher on the 3rd centered by Evans.
Lehky - Paquette - Armia on the 4th
Perrault and Byron on sidelines when all are healthy.

I get rolling four lines equally and giving some players extra time on the PP and PK, but you can't have all players playing around the same minutes because that would cut scoring down in general I believe.

One and preferably 2 forward wingers need to go. A defenseman as well in order to get a PMD.

Have a feeling they will showcase some wingers and then trade them in mid season for defensive puck moving help.

Can't think Gally and Hoffman are too happy playing 3rd line with Evans as their center.

 

[RationalExpectations]

Ducharme's gonna have a headache with all tne wingers he has.

Something's gotta give.

At this point we have Hoffman and Gallagher on the 3rd centered by Evans.
Lehky - Paquette - Armia on the 4th
Perrault and Byron on sidelines when all are healthy.

I get rolling four lines equally and giving some players extra time on the PP and PK, but you can't have all players playing around the same minutes because that would cut scoring down in general I believe.

One and preferably 2 forward wingers need to go. A defenseman as well in order to get a PMD.

Have a feeling they will showcase some wingers and then trade them in mid season for defensive puck moving help.

Can't think Gally and Hoffman are too happy playing 3rd line with Evans as their center.

I believe Gally Hoffman should play with Dvorak while Drouin Anderson play with Evans. I would put Poehling or Paquette, Lekhonen Armia together.

 

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

I believe Gally Hoffman should play with Dvorak while Drouin Anderson play with Evans. I would put Poehling or Paquette, Lekhonen Armia together.

I get that, but all indications point to the top 6 being as follows:

Toff - Suzie - CC
Drou - Dvo - Andy

 

[RationalExpectations]

I get that, but all indications point to the top 6 being as follows:

Toff - Suzie - CC
Drou - Dvo - Andy

Apparently Ducharme is looking for duos rather than trios, to be able to adapt better. In my opinion there are two clear duos : Suzuki - CC (most skilled duo) , Anderson - Drouin (quick dynamo pure offense line). Maybe if they are being really agile in the line management, you could imagine a Dvorak (or Paquette, Poehling) Gallagher Armia line which would have only one goal : keeping the puck behind the opponent's net (like the Perry Staal Armia line in the post season)

 

[Habs Icing]

Ducharme's gonna have a headache with all tne wingers he has.

Something's gotta give.

At this point we have Hoffman and Gallagher on the 3rd centered by Evans.
Lehky - Paquette - Armia on the 4th
Perrault and Byron on sidelines when all are healthy.

I get rolling four lines equally and giving some players extra time on the PP and PK, but you can't have all players playing around the same minutes because that would cut scoring down in general I believe.

One and preferably 2 forward wingers need to go. A defenseman as well in order to get a PMD.

Have a feeling they will showcase some wingers and then trade them in mid season for defensive puck moving help.

Can't think Gally and Hoffman are too happy playing 3rd line with Evans as their center.

Hoffman will be out a month and Byron most likely half a season. Chances are by the time those two will be ready to return there will be other wingers injured. DD will have lots of headaches this season. None of them will be because he has too many good NHL wingers.

 

[Harry Kakalovich]

Just how good or bad will these Habs be?

 

[Habs Icing]

Just how good or bad will these Habs be?

Most believe our defense is a weakness. I don't think so. I think the big question mark is our center corps. Even if Suzuki and Dvorak live up to expectations our #3 & #4 are two positions of concern until proven otherwise.

 

[Captain97]

Hoffman will be out a month and Byron most likely half a season. Chances are by the time those two will be ready to return there will be other wingers injured. DD will have lots of headaches this season. None of them will be because he has too many good NHL wingers.

You have to remember 1 month from when it was announced is like 4-6 games.

Hoffman will be back by end of October (supposedly at the lastest) which is 2 weeks after the season starts.

 

[BLONG7]

The good news is, we have now finally some depth.....and one thing for certain there is a ton of combinations that can be used when lines are not working.
Not sure who will be with who, but I would like to see lines together for longer than a game or two.....give them a chance to play together 7-8 games to see if there can be some consistency.....people wonder why Tatar, Gally and Dano worked? Because they were together for what, 4-5 seasons......that's why.
This nonsense of changing lines after the second period, game after game is crazy......give these guys a fair shot at making a line go, and go good!!

 

[Archijerej]

Just how good or bad will these Habs be?

Very hard to say due to question marks at D and C.

They could be surprisingly good like in 2018-19, if everybody buys into a solid system and Price can deliver consistently.

They could also be out of the race by the deadline.

I'm thinking the latter, due to overall imbalance of this roster.

 

[BaseballCoach]

Most believe our defense is a weakness. I don't think so. I think the big question mark is our center corps. Even if Suzuki and Dvorak live up to expectations our #3 & #4 are two spots of concern until proven otherwise.

We have too many wingers and one center short.

Solution might be to move Drouin to center the third line with Anderson and either Byron or Poehling on LW. Drouin will have much less pressure in that role than when he was asked to be 1C.

This rebalances our lines if all wingers are healthy.

Toffoli - Suzuki - Caufield
Hoffman (replaces Tatar) - Dvorak (replaces Danault) - Gallagher
Byron - Drouin (replaces KK) - Anderson
Lehkonen - Evans - Armia (a "fourth" line that can play against anyone)

 

[Harry Kakalovich]

Very hard to say due to question marks at D and C.

They could be surprisingly good like in 2018-19, if everybody buys into a solid system and Price can deliver consistently.

They could also be out of the race by the deadline.

I'm thinking the latter, due to overall imbalance of this roster.

Agreed. Plus the long playoff run might lead to injuries being a bigger problem than usual.

 

[Habs Halifax]

Just how good or bad will these Habs be?

My range is top 12-20 range. Could sneak in or just miss out. Can't go on long loosing steaks.

 

[Habs Halifax]

Very hard to say due to question marks at D and C.

They could be surprisingly good like in 2018-19, if everybody buys into a solid system and Price can deliver consistently.

They could also be out of the race by the deadline.

I'm thinking the latter, due to overall imbalance of this roster.

What's the imbalanced context you have? Not saying you are wrong, I'm curious

 

[Captain97]

My range is top 12-20 range. Could sneak in or just miss out. Can't go on long loosing steaks.

I feel like this is a reasonable prediction, somewhere in the middle.

 

[Wats]

I'm starting to feel like having Gallagher play higher in the lineup might make him more effective/less injury prone later in the season. Being on a line with Danault and going against top lines all the time takes a toll.

Toffoli - Suzuki - Gallagher
Drouin - Dvorak - Anderson
Armia - Evans - Caufield*
Perrault - Paquette - Lehkonen

Bench: Pezzetta
IR: Hoffman
LTIR: Byron

*perfect world Caufield/Suzuki never get split. The idea is to maximize Gallagher/Armia offensive ability...combined 10M in cap. Caufield is still a rookie and Armia/Evans could shelter him defensively at the start. Hopefully he is actually good enough to carry that line and awakens Armia's offensive skill. Kotkaniemi was not ready to do this and it's not an easy job. Hopefully Ducharme is good enough to move Caufield with Suzuki depending on game script.

 

[Habs Halifax]

I feel like this is a reasonable prediction, somewhere in the middle.

I like putting a range to it and a fair spread cause that's the reality of where we are at with our direction. I don't see better than top 12 and I don't see worse than top 20.

 

[Archijerej]

What's the imbalanced context you have? Not saying you are wrong, I'm curious

Lack of puck-moving ability and creativity from the blueline and a lack of suitable centers for our winger group.

 

[Harry Kakalovich]

I like putting a range to it and a fair spread cause that's the reality of where we are at with our direction. I don't see better than top 12 and I don't see worse than top 20.

I could see them being worse than top 20

 

[BargainBinSpecial]

We have too many wingers and one center short.

Solution might be to move Drouin to center the third line with Anderson and either Byron or Poehling on LW. Drouin will have much less pressure in that role than when he was asked to be 1C.

This rebalances our lines if all wingers are healthy.

Toffoli - Suzuki - Caufield
Hoffman (replaces Tatar) - Dvorak (replaces Danault) - Gallagher
Byron - Drouin (replaces KK) - Anderson
Lehkonen - Evans - Armia (a "fourth" line that can play against anyone)

Drouin as a shutdown center is recipe for disaster. Frankly, I do wish he rebounds so the Habs can leverage him somehow to lure a bigger fish.

 

[Miller Time]

I could see them being worse than top 20

Agreed.

I'd say 15-25 is a more apt range.

If petry or one of suzuki/Dvorak are out for a long stretch, falling out of the top 20 seems likely.

And unless everything goes right and one of the 4 elite teams in our division falters heavily, hard to see this roster finish better than 5th, making a top 12 finish very unlikely.

 

[Miller Time]

What makes you say it's unlikely he's a top 4 dman in the NHL right now?

I agree it's unlikely without seeing a soon to be 20 year old play. But, we're now seeing him play, and will throughout the preseason. He played like a number 2 last night.

Preseason "like a number 2" for 1 game is a far cry from 82 regular season games as a top 4 dman.

Could he play on a top 4 role on an NHL team this year? Probably on a few bottom tier teams, but I doubt he'd outperform any of our top 6-7 dmen (maybe even 8 if Niku steps up) on a consistent basis.

No need or purpose to rush him. Still has a lot of growth to his game if he's going to blossom into a top pairing nhler, much better to spend another year refining his game in that kind of role and, with luck, skip the Ahl and crack the NHL roster in a top 4 role next season.

 

[WinterLion]

It is going to depend a lot on injuries and goaltending as usual. I'd say they are a bubble playoff team unless they have a bad year from either goalie... or an above average amount of injuries. Playoffs would be fun... so would a top 10 pick.... in between... not so fun.