I'm certainly not blaming the second line's offence on the first line's lack thereof. I'm just pointing out that in order to limit the bleeding caused by having 81-55-13 together (by putting them with 5-4 (which honestly is a mistake, IMO)) and putting your strongest pairing in 44-2 with 62-17-22 to matchup against MacKinnon, you're left with that line being paired with Stanley (who was pretty much just a hitting machine tonight) and Samberg on his offhand.
And then if the puck gets frozen in the OZ, Bowness just throws out his top line instead, or the Lowry line if COL puts out MacKinnon instead - leaving them with only two faceoffs in the offensive zone the entire night? Do we really think Ehlers can make up for the other four players on the ice lack of ability to transition the puck through two bluelines?
Obviously, they didn't create much chances for themselves, either - all I'm saying is that their deployment isn't really ideal. They have no rhythm or flow.
You've done a nice job of laying out our depth (especially on D) and how it impacts our ability to create offense -
But I'm not sure there is a solution in there anywhere.
44-2 are going to play the big minutes which happen to be the Mac minutes -
5-4 are next in line and will support our scoring line -
And 64-54 are what is left to support our "2nd" line - and neither of these guys will provide much in the way of offense. Stan's doing what he has been asked to do and as per the narrative, 54 struggles on the right side. IMO, a lot of that is simply the fact that he struggles - he's making mistakes that have nothing to do with the side or the ice he is playing. His biggest blunders are simply moving the puck under pressure - with the puck on his forehand. Stan's in the same boat - the Aves are very good with speed / pressure and our third paring are struggling with that - no surprise really.
In the end, it comes back to my first sentence above - our depth on D is not great and they have replied on a lot of support during the season, IOW's, when we played a more defensive 5 man game. If we can't get back to that (or at least attempt to play that game), our blueline is exposed (especially against excellent possession / cycle / rush teams like the Aves).
So, lets pull Stan and put in Miller / Smitty - I'm fine with that but I don't think it matters - because if that second line is going to continue playing the way they are (getting beat to almost every puck - or losing battles when they do get there), it won't matter. That's a vet line that should be able to adjust their game.
I'm in the camp that thinks we need to play a more conservative game - slow things down as much as possible and create more offense off turnovers rather than thinking our D will be the difference maker via a wide-open game.
Just my thoughts -