Line Combos: 2018-2019 Starting Roster

[Hobble]

Yes, they are great. Hovewer, I checked their 5-on-5 statistics of following combinations:

ESW + CSW + PSW (listed as "Scheifele w Wheeler")
ESL + PSL (listed as "Scheifele w Laine")

with following results:

						TOI (min)						GF	GF/60	GA	GA/60	GDiff	GF%
Scheifele w Wheeler						1163.44						55	2.84	50	2.58	5	52,38 %
Scheifele w Laine						401.49						33	4.93	21	3.14	12	61,11 %

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Mind you, most of those "Scheifele w Laine" are from Laine's rookie season as a 18-year-old when Jets was quite bad in general, and most of those "Scheifel w Wheeler" are from last season when Jets was about to take the President's Trophy, but didn't quite manage to do that.

Seems that Scheifele + Rookie Laine had a bit higher GA/60, but really significantly higher GF/60 as well, and therefore much, much better GF%. In other words, given the same amount of TOI had they continued to be as effective, Scheifele w Laine would have made about +35 goal differential instead of that +5 goal differential Scheifele was able to do with Wheeler with same other wingers (apart from Connor, that never played with Scheifele & Laine).

It's not debatable whether 1150 min sample size is big enough. It's huge. Sample size of 400 min is also substantial. These statistics greatly favor trying Laine with Scheifele again, and pretty soon. Obviously Maurice sheltered Laine much more than he shelters Wheeler, as Maurice shelters Wheeler only with Lowry line whereas he shelters Laine with both Lowry line and Scheifele line. However, the opponent tries to target your best offensive forces, and you can't control that. And therefore playing field is much more even that it may sound in the first place.

Those special minutes Scheifele played with Wheeler and Stastny protecting the lead are not shown in above statistics.

Conclusion:

Statistically duo Scheifele + Laine with either Ehlers or Perreault as the other winger has been 74% MORE productive than duo Scheifele + Wheeler with either Ehlers, Perreault or Connor as the other winger. When considering 22% WORSE defence though, the net effectivenes for winning of ScheifLaine duo vs. MarkWheeler was "only" roughly 600% better (+35 vs +5) ;-)

Well. Just a couple more goals for MarkWheeler, and that 600% is no more as the divider is so small, but you got the idea. In all seriousness it's better to compare just GF/60, GA/60 and GF% to get the idea of what works and what doesn't.

(Waiting for Corsi army to invade the thread in any time, but Jim Corsi doesn't score you any goals and it cannot be used to measure past success or to compare different players on isolation, only for individual trends.)


EDIT: Adding one of the greatest combinations of NHL currently as a comparison:

			Season	Team	GP	TOI	GF	GF/60	GA	GA/60	G+/-	Gdiff/60	GF%
MARCHAND	PASTRNAK	BERGERON	2016-2018	BOS	117	1042,78	53	3,05	36	2,07	17	0,98	59,55

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

They are absolutely superb at defending letting only just a bit over 2 GA/60. However, their offence could be better as it's only a bit better than MarkWheeler, but doesn't even dream off the levels of ScheifLaine, even when considering that that Bergeron line is pretty much the "Lowry-line" in terms of shutting down the deadliest opposing lines, such as they did for Matthews in the playofs, AFAIK.

Numbers would suggest Laine+Scheif to be the best combo to try.
Also, the fact that Wheeler is nearing the end of his contract, and even with a new contract, the Jets will hopefully have Scheif and Laine on the team much longer. I think it would make sense to have your two young and powerhouse players together and building chemistry for as long as possible. Wheeler and Little have played together before (+/- Ladd), so they obviously know how to play off each other.

 

[Tommigun]

Ehlers....Shief....Wheeler
Connor.....Rozlo.....Laine
Perrault .....Little.....Petan
Copp ....Lowry.....Tanev

Dano

I like that, but Roslovic won’t be playing 2C any time soon.

 

[PhilJets]

Yes, they are great. Hovewer, I checked their 5-on-5 statistics of following combinations:

ESW + CSW + PSW (listed as "Scheifele w Wheeler")
ESL + PSL (listed as "Scheifele w Laine")

with following results:

						TOI (min)						GF	GF/60	GA	GA/60	GDiff	GF%
Scheifele w Wheeler						1163.44						55	2.84	50	2.58	5	52,38 %
Scheifele w Laine						401.49						33	4.93	21	3.14	12	61,11 %

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Mind you, most of those "Scheifele w Laine" are from Laine's rookie season as a 18-year-old when Jets was quite bad in general, and most of those "Scheifel w Wheeler" are from last season when Jets was about to take the President's Trophy, but didn't quite manage to do that.

Seems that Scheifele + Rookie Laine had a bit higher GA/60, but really significantly higher GF/60 as well, and therefore much, much better GF%. In other words, given the same amount of TOI had they continued to be as effective, Scheifele w Laine would have made about +35 goal differential instead of that +5 goal differential Scheifele was able to do with Wheeler with same other wingers (apart from Connor, that never played with Scheifele & Laine).

It's not debatable whether 1150 min sample size is big enough. It's huge. Sample size of 400 min is also substantial. These statistics greatly favor trying Laine with Scheifele again, and pretty soon. Obviously Maurice sheltered Laine much more than he shelters Wheeler, as Maurice shelters Wheeler only with Lowry line whereas he shelters Laine with both Lowry line and Scheifele line. However, the opponent tries to target your best offensive forces, and you can't control that. And therefore playing field is much more even that it may sound in the first place.

Those special minutes Scheifele played with Wheeler and Stastny protecting the lead are not shown in above statistics.

Conclusion:

Statistically duo Scheifele + Laine with either Ehlers or Perreault as the other winger has been 74% MORE productive than duo Scheifele + Wheeler with either Ehlers, Perreault or Connor as the other winger. When considering 22% WORSE defence though, the net effectivenes for winning of ScheifLaine duo vs. MarkWheeler was "only" roughly 600% better (+35 vs +5) ;-)

Well. Just a couple more goals for MarkWheeler, and that 600% is no more as the divider is so small, but you got the idea. In all seriousness it's better to compare just GF/60, GA/60 and GF% to get the idea of what works and what doesn't.

(Waiting for Corsi army to invade the thread in any time, but Jim Corsi doesn't score you any goals and it cannot be used to measure past success or to compare different players on isolation, only for individual trends.)


EDIT: Adding one of the greatest combinations of NHL currently as a comparison:

			Season	Team	GP	TOI	GF	GF/60	GA	GA/60	G+/-	Gdiff/60	GF%
MARCHAND	PASTRNAK	BERGERON	2016-2018	BOS	117	1042,78	53	3,05	36	2,07	17	0,98	59,55

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

They are absolutely superb at defending letting only just a bit over 2 GA/60. However, their offence could be better as it's only a bit better than MarkWheeler, but doesn't even dream off the levels of ScheifLaine, even when considering that that Bergeron line is pretty much the "Lowry-line" in terms of shutting down the deadliest opposing lines, such as they did for Matthews in the playofs, AFAIK.

55 and 29 duo is a probably one of the best duo if put together this year.
Schiefele adapted to Wheeler style when he plays with him.
But he compliments Laine better. They attack from the neutral ice, then dont cycle they just score quickly.
Schiefele is far beter transition game center.
With Ehlers flying on the other wing. They creat havoc and distrupt other teams defense.

 

[King In The North]

How likely is it that Roslo starts on the 2nd line opening night? It seems likely Paul Maurice will start Little there?

 

[ocdaddy]

How likely is it that Roslo starts on the 2nd line opening night? It seems likely Paul Maurice will start Little there?

Its a likely chance that PMo sends Little Laine Ehlers over the boarďs 2nd line. Or am I too pesimistic?

 

[papasan]

Connor/Shief/Laine
Ehlers/RNH/Rozlo
MP/Little/Simmonds
Copp/Lowey/Tanev

Morrissey/Buff
Sanhiem/Myers
Kulikov/Poolman

Would you trade Trouba and Wheeler for this lineup?

 

[10Ducky10]

Connor/Shief/Laine
Ehlers/RNH/Rozlo
MP/Little/Simmonds
Copp/Lowey/Tanev

Morrissey/Buff
Sanhiem/Myers
Kulikov/Poolman

Would you trade Trouba and Wheeler for this lineup?

You're trading Wheeler for RNH?

 

[papasan]

The Wheeler trade is a proposal on "JETSNATION".
The Trouba trade is a proposal on "Trade Rumors and Free Agent Talk".
Take them for what they are, I am just looking at the lineup being suggested.

 

[PhilJets]

We are in for a treat fellow Jets fans this year.
Not at any point in the Jets history we had this much high caliber players at the same time.

Top 3 goalie arguably #1
Broissat ,kidding
Helly ofcourse.

Top7 center, IMO he is top5.
Mark Schiefele

Top 15 Defenseman in
Dustin Byfuglien

TWO! Yes 2 top 10 wingers

In Laine in Wheeler.
Laine can assert himself as the leagues number 1 this year.


And we haven't mention yet

Trouba
Ehlers
Morrissey
Connor

Plus
Myers
Little
Lowry
Perrault

Then another wave of young players in
Roslovic
Vesalainen
Niku
And more!!!!


Go JETS GO

This is our cup year!!!!

 

[10Ducky10]

The lineup I would like to see if all are healthy and make the team.

Perrault....Shief....Laine
Vaseline.....Little.....Wheeler
Connor.....Roslo.....Ehlers
Copp ....Lowry.....Tanev/Dano/Petan

JMo Trouba
Niku Buff
Kuli Myers
Morrow

Helle/Comrie

 

[boydkc]

The lineup I would like to see if all are healthy and make the team.

Perrault....Shief....Laine
Vaseline.....Little.....Wheeler
Connor.....Roslo.....Ehlers
Copp ....Lowry.....Tanev/Dano/Petan

JMo Trouba
Niku Buff
Kuli Myers
Morrow

Helle/Comrie

The only way that I see Wheeler signing another contract and the jets winning a cup is for him to play centre.

Ehlers Schiefele Laine
Connor Wheeler Roslovich
Perreault Lowry Little
Lemieux Copp Tanev
Petan. Appleton

 

[204hockey]

We know wheeler and little can play together shief laine wheeler littl!

 

[boydkc]

We know wheeler and little can play together shief laine wheeler littl!

Roslovich and Connor had great chemistry with the moose but yes that could flip around. I just think for this team to win a cup With the jets depth they have on the wings Wheeler needs to play centre. When he was forced to play there last season he was gassed as he was the #1 option and got too many minutes ,with my lineup he could excel in the centre position and if he plans to leave after this contract he will demand more $ as a centre.

 

[10Ducky10]

Wheeler will play center only in an emergency.

 

[DJBiffWPG]

The only way that I see Wheeler signing another contract and the jets winning a cup is for him to play centre.

Ehlers Schiefele Laine
Connor Wheeler Roslovich
Perreault Lowry Little
Lemieux Copp Tanev
Petan. Appleton

He’s not a good C.

 

[DJBiffWPG]

The only way that I see Wheeler signing another contract and the jets winning a cup is for him to play centre.

Ehlers Schiefele Laine
Connor Wheeler Roslovich
Perreault Lowry Little
Lemieux Copp Tanev
Petan. Appleton

Appleton and Lemieux will both start on the Moose barring injury. They won’t put Dano on waivers.

Also, Wheeler should never play C.

 

[voyageur]

Appleton and Lemieux will both start on the Moose barring injury. They won’t put Dano on waivers.

Also, Wheeler should never play C.

That would be a good line for Roslovic to centre though. And that 3rd line can play. I like Lemieux on a 4th line. Somebody has to answer the bell in the rough and tumble games. He played more than Petan or Dano after mid season last year. I think he was the next forward substitute after Roslovic and Hendricks in the playoffs last year. He has a good chance at camp.

 

[DJBiffWPG]

That would be a good line for Roslovic to centre though. And that 3rd line can play. I like Lemieux on a 4th line. Somebody has to answer the bell in the rough and tumble games. He played more than Petan or Dano after mid season last year. I think he was the next forward substitute after Roslovic and Hendricks in the playoffs last year. He has a good chance at camp.

I didn’t see anything resembling an NHL player when he got into some games next year. Some more seasoning in the AHL would do him good.

 

[Howard Chuck]

Roslovich and Connor had great chemistry with the moose but yes that could flip around. I just think for this team to win a cup With the jets depth they have on the wings Wheeler needs to play centre. When he was forced to play there last season he was gassed as he was the #1 option and got too many minutes ,with my lineup he could excel in the centre position and if he plans to leave after this contract he will demand more $ as a centre.

The magic was noticeable when Connor and Roslovic were together for short periods on the Jets last year as well. They are a terrific duo together.

Scheif/Laine
Little/Wheeler
Roslovic/Connor
Lowry/anyone

Sprinkle in any of our other awesome wingers as desired.

 

[Farmboy Patty]

I'd like to see something like this at some point next season:

Ehlers - Scheifele - Laine
Perreault - Little - Wheeler
Connor - Roslovic - Appleton/Vesalainen
Copp - Lowry - Tanev

Perreault and Ehlers are interchangeable, but Scheif and Laine should play together.
I think that Little could have a real bounce back year if he gets to play with Wheeler.
The third line would be pretty inexperienced, but given sheltered minutes they could be a scoring threat. If Vesalainen signs and makes it out of camp, he could turn out great on that line.
The fourth line should remain intact as long as they are healthy.

 

[garret9]

I just looked some GF/60 & GA/60 for different line combinations including Laine, and I was horrified how bad those having Laine playing with Little were in comparison to those combinations where he played without Little. That's quite odd considering that I think they had really good start together when Little made comeback after his injury. In the hindsight though maybe their honeymoon did not get that long and that they had some good moments makes following stats even more horrifying:

Laine w/o Little: TOI 947 GF/60 4.43 GA/60 2.47 GF% 64,22% gDiff +31
Laine w Little: TOI 731 GF/60 2.71 GA/60 2.71 GF% 50% gDiff +-0

Sample size that is already HUGE tells us that those line combinations having Laine without Little produce 63+% MORE (while allowing less goals against, go figure!) than those where Laine is having Little as his center.

Even that glorified PLE was not really that good after all. They produced way more than ELL, but they also did let way more goals against.

The only sane conclusion is that they should really try any other combination than forcing Laine and Little together. It can be Scheifele, it can be Copp, it can be even Wheeler as a center (but hopefully we don't see that since Scheifele must be injured then), but the most important thing is that it should not be Little.

In addition that combination Maurice said he dislikes, Laine-Scheifele-Wheeler didn't also match my eye test as well on Laine's rookie season when they tried it couple of games. Apart from Laine having that hat trick, it somehow didn't look too good to my eyes as well, so there we agree with Maurice. BUT as Laine is like match made in heaven with Scheifele and worked really well with Wheeler as a center and furthermore, that experiment was about two years ago, so maybe, just maybe that combination should be given a new trial:

Laine-Scheifele-Wheeler
Connor-Roslovic-Ehlers
Perreault-Little-Petan/Dano
Copp-Lowry-Tanev

Yeah, I know, Connor-Roslovic-Ehlers may be little too experimental for Maurice, but somehow I would love to see that together for a moment. They have great potential to succeed very well, but also great potential for catastrofic defensive failures.

More safe roster would be of course:

Ehlers-Scheifele-Laine
Connor-Little-Wheeler
Perreault-Roslovic-Petan/Dano
Copp-Lowry-Tanev

I would just add a little twist for TOP-6 though:

Connor-Scheifele-Laine
Ehlers-Little-Wheeler

And regardless the line number, TOP-6 should see quite equal TOI.

I’m just going to make a minor note that it’s about 12000 TOI for goal metrics to start to become stable (depending on your personal threshold for confidence intervals), and that’s not even *huge* yet. So, the sample above is about 8% of what I’d call a confident enough sample size. It’s too small to say it’s because they work well together or not.

When it comes to player line ups that worked/didn’t, I strongly suggest not really using goal metrics and concentrate on Corsi and xGaols (or scoring chances) with emphasis on the former.

So if those metrics agree with the goal metrics, at least somewhat, then you can be confident of that.

 

[WiscoJet]

My wish that won't come true

Perreault-Scheifele-Laine
Connor-Little-Wheeler
Petan-Roslovic-Ehlers
Copp-Lowry-Appleton

Morrissey-Trouba
Niku-Byfuglien
Kulikov-Myers

Hellebuyck
Waiver wire pickup or trade

 

[voyageur]

I didn’t see anything resembling an NHL player when he got into some games next year. Some more seasoning in the AHL would do him good.

I saw a solid 4th liner, won more board battles than lost, finished checks, went to the greasy areas, drew more penalties than took.

There is an opening.

If the quoted lineup was used Lemieux would slot in perfectly to a 9 minute per night line.

There's an opening for 2nd PP.
I think Lemieux has a good chance to emerge on the unit with Ehlers, Little, Perreault. None of those 3 are net front presences. Petan and Perreault are very similar in their half wall game. This is a team that lost because they physically were broken down by the Knights. I think Lemieux will bring a different kind of edge, and score as much as Army.

 

[boydkc]

I saw a solid 4th liner, won more board battles than lost, finished checks, went to the greasy areas, drew more penalties than took.

There is an opening.

If the quoted lineup was used Lemieux would slot in perfectly to a 9 minute per night line.

There's an opening for 2nd PP.
I think Lemieux has a good chance to emerge on the unit with Ehlers, Little, Perreault. None of those 3 are net front presences. Petan and Perreault are very similar in their half wall game. This is a team that lost because they physically were broken down by the Knights. I think Lemieux will bring a different kind of edge, and score as much as Army.

The power play for Lemieux would be perfect spot for Lemieux take over front net presence he needs to keep his cool but works continually on tipping pucks in practice. With Armia gone we need that he also plays both wings.

 

[DJBiffWPG]

I saw a solid 4th liner, won more board battles than lost, finished checks, went to the greasy areas, drew more penalties than took.

There is an opening.

If the quoted lineup was used Lemieux would slot in perfectly to a 9 minute per night line.

There's an opening for 2nd PP.
I think Lemieux has a good chance to emerge on the unit with Ehlers, Little, Perreault. None of those 3 are net front presences. Petan and Perreault are very similar in their half wall game. This is a team that lost because they physically were broken down by the Knights. I think Lemieux will bring a different kind of edge, and score as much as Army.

Well I disagree with everything you said so congratulations. Let him play big minutes with the Moose.