aragorn
Do The Right Thing
- Aug 8, 2004
- 28,592
- 9,106
There's absolutely no chance that the line-up looks like this, unless Boucher wants to lose his job and put an end to his NHL career right away.
It would also be stupid to stack the 3 best forwards on the first line. Stone makes his linemates better and help them produce so he should be the one moved away from Duchene and Hoffman who have proven chemistry together. I don't know if somebody (like Micklebot) could dig the numbers of Dzingel production when he played with those 2, I'm sure it was quite interesting.
Based on all that, the first line should certainly be HOFFMAN-DUCHENE-DZINGEL
Like I said earlier, Pageau and Stone have shown chemistry before and had very good production together 2 years ago. Smith was their LWinger and ended up with 25 goals. If you put Ryan there, who has much better hands and can make high skilled plays, you increase your chances of good production for a 2nd line. Based on hypothecially 82 healthy games together, I could see Stone with 65 pts, Ryan with 55 pts and Pageau with 45-50 pts (including special teams)
Based on all that, the second line should certainly be RYAN-PAGEAU-STONE
And we're not even sure of who will make the team. Brown? 4th OA pick? Batherson? Formenton? Paul? etc.
I think White and Chlapik will be there. Pyatt has one year left (and it's cheap) so he should be there to not have an entire green bottom-6. No idea what will happen with Burrows and Gaborik as they are perfect candidates to cut salary. Same with Smith, who could be traded for a pick and replace him by a younger and cheaper player.
If I had to guess (if none of Brown, 4th OA pick, Batherson, Formenton, etc makes the team)
Smith-White-Chlapik
Pyatt-Paul-Burrows
McCormick
But then again, too many questions to answer before predicting the line-up, particularly the bottom part of it.
EDIT : Just saw that, Melnykout has a very similar group to mine.
Let's not be overly dramatic, we have exactly the same players in the top six except that we have a couple of players in different positions. Lots of teams have stacked their top line with their best players although I doubt any team does it for extended periods of time. And Ryan, Dzingel & Brassard had a pretty good run together last yr for a while, Pageau could easily replace Brassard with those two.
I also prefer to spread out the wealth but it isn't out of the realm of possibility that at any time they stack the top line whether in a game or over an extended period of time. John Paddock did it with Heatley, Spezza & Alfredsson & they went on one of the greatest scoring runs in Senator history, so it's not unheard of. I will concede that GB is more of a spread the wealth kind of coach though & likely will try & create three scoring lines if possible.
However, as you say, it is too early to predict any lineups since we have no idea what will happen with Gaborik, Burrows or Paajarvi & Wideman for that matter. If we include the RFAs who were in Ottawa to finish the yr as potentially being on the team next season Ottawa should have about 20 players under contract to start the season. Depending on what happens there may not be that much room for prospects to start the yr. Either way it will certainly be interesting to see what happens this off season if PD is able to change fans perception of this team for next season & whether they are working towards making the playoffs or rebuilding.