Having Chorney in the lineup also has the benefit that all six Ds can be used on the penalty kill - every minute you can have Schmidt and Chorney out there blocking shots on the PK, you're slightly less likely to see one of the top-4 out with injury from a blocked shot. I think the fact that Schmidt PKs and Orlov doesn't says quite a lot about how much they trust Orly's defensive game, given that he isn't usually on the PP when at full health. Likewise that they still promote Schmidt if Orpik's out.
I've also noticed that Schmidt seems to be firing far more shots from the blue line than he was towards the end of the regular season - exactly what we need from our D to create rebounds and deflections for our Fs in front of the net.
As for the second line, they seem to be paired a lot with the 3rd Ds - maybe giving them a few more shifts with Carlson, who's driving so much offensive force at the moment, would help them? If Burakovsky has another strong game (though I think he was out there for two goals against in game 1, took a penalty and missed a couple of key chances to end it) I can imagine him being flipped with Williams.
But if it is Kuznetsov who is the bigger issue on that second line, I can't see them moving him. Unless you have him Center the third or fourth line, with Richards or Beagle taking faceoffs as, ostensibly, wingers, they can't really demote him, and he hasn't done much negatively to deserve time in the press box (nor are Latta or Galiev going to score more than him). But how many games will that line need to go scoreless, or close to scoreless, at even strength before Trotz becomes impatient? We need secondary scoring, that top line can only fairly carry us so far.