How could we do with just using established lines and not just shoehorning the best in?
Straka Lang Kovalev
Cooke - Staal -Kennedy
Kunitz Sid Dupuis or Hossa
Stevens Lemieux Jagr
Fedetenko Malkin Talbot
Whoever Malkin Neal
Hags Bonino Kessel
What was Francis' best line?
Malkins? I'm blanking on who was LW when he and Neal were dominating. He and Sid have both had a lot of spare parts lines.
I'm sure I'm missing a bunch.
Now THAT is a fun hypothetical. Considering only lines/pairings.
I feel like you have to leave Crosby off unless you account for Dupuis/Crosby/Hossa. But considering I'm putting in the HBK line, which didn't last long either, I don't see why Hossa can't count himself.
Stevens OR Francis - Lemieux - Jagr
Kunitz - Malkin - Neal
Dupuis - Crosby - Hossa
Hagelin - Bonino - Kessel (It may have been only for a total of 40 games regular season/playoffs but it sure as hell won us that ECF.)
It's hard for me to keep the Lang line off (Straka/Lang/Kovalev) but the speed (and PK ability excluding #81) of those "bottom" 6 wingers...
D pairs I'm not so sure about honestly, as I wasn't even alive for the first back-to-back. And it's just always been sexier to research Mario/Jagr/the forwards/etc, but I'll give it a shot.
Coffey - Murphy
Burrows - Stackhouse
Dumoulin - Letang ***
The last one is a bit of a projection, and one that'll probably going to be scoffed at, but Dumoulin is a legit #2, and my goodness his game in the post-season raises a few levels. It's been pretty good in 2018 at least, and Letang was perhaps the best we've ever seen him in that SJ series, with Dumoulin flanking him. I see that being our top pair for years to come, regardless.
Either way, that was definitely fun to do it that way. Can at least feel less guilty about leaving off the likes of Kovalev, Straka, Gonchar, Recchi, J. Cullen etc.
