ATD 2019 Lineup Advice Thread

[Sprague Cleghorn]

There are a few quotes about his body checking, but perhaps I'll just keep my original arrangement.

S.Howe - Hawerchuk - G.Howe
Kariya - Kennedy - Maltsev

Thanks for the input

I just skimmed Syd Howe's latest bio again, and I saw some moderate-strength quotes about his backchecking, but not much about toughness.

Did you guys check my Howe bio from 2018? I didnt see it on the master bio thread, so was assuming not. i found a lot more stuff thanks to the Detroit Free Press which is only available through a paywall.

 

[The Macho King]

Some help:

#11 Busher Jackson - #6 Frank Nighbor - # 10 Pavel Bure
#20 Luc Robitaille - #19 Bryan Trottier (A) - #12 Gordie Drillon
#97 Esa Tikkanen - #37 Patrice Bergeron - #22 Claude Lemieux
#8 Sergei Kapustin - #91 Steven Stamkos - #86 Nikita Kucherov
#8 Dave Trottier - #33 Kris Draper - #222 Dino Ciccarelli

So I hated my second line from day one, and I hate it more now. What I'm wondering is if you can see a way to improve it? One way I was thinking was moving Tikkanen up to the second and moving Robitaille down to the third. I think that breaks up my dream pest/defensive line, but is it worth it? On the other side, maybe swap Kapustin and Robitaille? Robitaille is way more talented, but I think Kapustin is a more well rounded player who can dig in the corners a bit, and my fourth line is a matador defensively anyway.

Or - frankly - should I just drop one of Drillon or Robitaille in favor of maybe moving Trottier (D) or Ciccarelli up to the main roster?

On D:

#3 Vladimir Lutchenko- #16 Vladimir Konstantinov
#77 Victor Hedman - #02 Red Horner
#8 Leo Reise Jr.

Issues with the second pair here. Would switching Horner and Konstantinov give me better balance here? I know Horner would be a bit over his head on the second pair, but since it's going to get caved in anyway, at least I can leave a few black eyes in the process.

 

[Namba 17]

Some help:

#11 Busher Jackson - #6 Frank Nighbor - # 10 Pavel Bure
#20 Luc Robitaille - #19 Bryan Trottier (A) - #12 Gordie Drillon
#97 Esa Tikkanen - #37 Patrice Bergeron - #22 Claude Lemieux
#8 Sergei Kapustin - #91 Steven Stamkos - #86 Nikita Kucherov
#8 Dave Trottier - #33 Kris Draper - #222 Dino Ciccarelli

So I hated my second line from day one, and I hate it more now. What I'm wondering is if you can see a way to improve it? One way I was thinking was moving Tikkanen up to the second and moving Robitaille down to the third. I think that breaks up my dream pest/defensive line, but is it worth it? On the other side, maybe swap Kapustin and Robitaille? Robitaille is way more talented, but I think Kapustin is a more well rounded player who can dig in the corners a bit, and my fourth line is a matador defensively anyway.

Or - frankly - should I just drop one of Drillon or Robitaille in favor of maybe moving Trottier (D) or Ciccarelli up to the main roster?

On D:

#3 Vladimir Lutchenko- #16 Vladimir Konstantinov
#77 Victor Hedman - #02 Red Horner
#8 Leo Reise Jr.

Issues with the second pair here. Would switching Horner and Konstantinov give me better balance here? I know Horner would be a bit over his head on the second pair, but since it's going to get caved in anyway, at least I can leave a few black eyes in the process.

I wish I could help, but it's really tough with your set of players... probably, swap Drillon and Lemieux will be the best out of bad variants

 

[The Macho King]

I wish I could help, but it's really tough with your set of players... probably, swap Drillon and Lemieux will be the best out of bad variants

I guess I'm going to have to settle on the line being kind of trash defensively. I mean - they'll be able to score, and they're going to get caved defensively pretty badly, but that isn't a unique trait even in the draft.

I still don't know why I picked Robitaille. I just thought he was BPA but he didn't fit my roster *at all*.

 

[Johnny Engine]

This might be some crazy talk here, but what about Drillon as the garbage man on the top line, Lemieux as the corner guy on the second line, and Bure as a counter-attack threat on the 3rd line? We know that Bure can score with little to no help, and Bergeron and Tikkanen can surely put in the work to "feed the cat" if you catch my drift.

 

[The Macho King]

This might be some crazy talk here, but what about Drillon as the garbage man on the top line, Lemieux as the corner guy on the second line, and Bure as a counter-attack threat on the 3rd line? We know that Bure can score with little to no help, and Bergeron and Tikkanen can surely put in the work to "feed the cat" if you catch my drift.

My issue with Bure on the third is he's my best pure goal scorer, and that would significantly cut his minutes. But it's something to think about. That may allow me to flatten out the ice time distribution a bit.

 

[Sprague Cleghorn]

Some help:

#11 Busher Jackson - #6 Frank Nighbor - # 10 Pavel Bure
#20 Luc Robitaille - #19 Bryan Trottier (A) - #12 Gordie Drillon
#97 Esa Tikkanen - #37 Patrice Bergeron - #22 Claude Lemieux
#8 Sergei Kapustin - #91 Steven Stamkos - #86 Nikita Kucherov
#8 Dave Trottier - #33 Kris Draper - #222 Dino Ciccarelli

So I hated my second line from day one, and I hate it more now. What I'm wondering is if you can see a way to improve it? One way I was thinking was moving Tikkanen up to the second and moving Robitaille down to the third. I think that breaks up my dream pest/defensive line, but is it worth it? On the other side, maybe swap Kapustin and Robitaille? Robitaille is way more talented, but I think Kapustin is a more well rounded player who can dig in the corners a bit, and my fourth line is a matador defensively anyway.

Or - frankly - should I just drop one of Drillon or Robitaille in favor of maybe moving Trottier (D) or Ciccarelli up to the main roster?

On D:

#3 Vladimir Lutchenko- #16 Vladimir Konstantinov
#77 Victor Hedman - #02 Red Horner
#8 Leo Reise Jr.

Issues with the second pair here. Would switching Horner and Konstantinov give me better balance here? I know Horner would be a bit over his head on the second pair, but since it's going to get caved in anyway, at least I can leave a few black eyes in the process.

The biggest issue with your 2nd line IMO is that you went overkill on net front presence garbage man players. Robitaille and Drillon's bread and butter were their work in front of the net, and that's pretty much all they're good at in an all-time sense. That pretty much leaves Trottier to do everything else offensively. I personally would just switch Jackson and Robitaille. The wings are still weak defensively, but C carries the most weight on the D side, and Trottier is definitely in the upper tier of F defensively speaking.

As for your D pairings, I'd say Horner on the first pair is a big no no. I had him for the ATD once and the only thing relevant I found about him is that he's an elite "black eye" creator. I couldn't find anything on his defensive play and his offense was at a #4 level in what I think was a 25 team ATD. With Konstantinov, even though he's an ideal #3 in an ATD this size, he's as good defensively as many #2s. He'll just be in way over his head trying to create offense.

The best thing I think you could do is switch Lutchenko for Hedman on the first pair. This is just my opinion, I don't know what the other GMs think, but at this point I think Hedman is as good or better than Lutchenko. Lutchenko - Konstantinov were both more stay at home Ds. Defensively, they should be able to do an average job for a 1st pairing in keeping the puck out of the net, but the pairing really lacks offensive power, and you could have real trouble in transition. Putting Hedman on top adds a more dynamic quality to that top pairing, and your team's breakouts would consist of something more complex than "ringing it around the boards".