Line Combos: DeBrincat-Schmaltz-Kane first line

[LordKOTL]

Joker is nothing like Leddy, and Moore is not a stay at home defensemen...not even close. Moore's game is dictated off of speed, he gets pucks out of the zone, but Q would have to allow him to skate it out like he has been doing for years lol!!

As someone who has seen a lot of Joker...live and in person, he's a lot like Leddy with some defensive upside (and can hit a 4x6 from the blueline)

You described Moore exactly how Joker plays for Portland...that worries me; Joker would thrive with a stay-at-home lefty

 

[AmericanDream]

Fine with the forward lines.

I think you are really, really sleeping on Forsling.

Kid is 20-21 and has shown really good he can be now it is just about consistency.

I honestly just listed the dmen, pair them however you like...lol..just showing that this would be a defense 7 deep with actual balance and some skill...the pairing don't mean much to me, just threw something together to just get a feel for what the team would look like...and damn it looks good..

 

[BK]

I honestly just listed the dmen, pair them however you like...lol..just showing that this would be a defense 7 deep with actual balance and some skill...the pairing don't mean much to me, just threw something together to just get a feel for what the team would look like...and damn it looks good..

Perfect world we could see something like this.

Include Rutta in a trade to improve the bottom 6.

Trade for Faulk (not Saad).

Sign John Moore or Calvin De Haan (assume there number is #6 in honor of Bobby Orr 2.0)

2-Faulk
42-5
6-HJ
7

This would move away from Q's matchup heavy rotation to a more balanced rotation.

Obviously Seabs will not sit but I would love to see this.

 

[AmericanDream]

As someone who has seen a lot of Joker...live and in person, he's a lot like Leddy with some defensive upside (and can hit a 4x6 from the blueline)

You described Moore exactly how Joker plays for Portland...that worries me; Joker would thrive with a stay-at-home lefty

I think at this point most of us have seen a lot of Jokiharju, I simply do not see much resembling Leddy with him like you do. His positioning is better at this age, his defense is better than Leddy, his speed is not as good as Leddy and neither is his shot (Leddy has an underrated shot IMO), but I do not see Joker playing a similar game to Leddy. Will he be an up-tempo player that can skate/outlet pass out the zone quickly? Yes, but can he also be solid in his own end, he has shown nothing but positives there for me. Everything I saw with him during the playoffs impressed me more as he showed that balance of being able to play above average both sides of the puck..something Leddy simply couldn't do.

I am cool with changing pairings around, I just put 7 names together to see how we could balance things out. Joker doesn't need to be on the top pair, but I think injecting him there with Keith could be the best thing for both as Keith could get that spark back playing with this kid.

 

[AmericanDream]

Perfect world we could see something like this.

Include Rutta in a trade to improve the bottom 6.

Trade for Faulk (not Saad).

Sign John Moore or Calvin De Haan (assume there number is #6 in honor of Bobby Orr 2.0)

2-Faulk
42-5
6-HJ
7

This would move away from Q's matchup heavy rotation to a more balanced rotation.

Obviously Seabs will not sit but I would love to see this.

f***ing priceless!!!!

 

[BK]

Jokiharju is to Leddy in the sense that they are both offensive defenseman but HJ is more refined in his own end and Leddy is a better skater. HJ strikes me as more confident at this point.

 

[EbonyRaptor]

D-Cat-Toews-Kane
Saad-Schmaltz-Sikura
Hino-Anisimov-Hayden

 

[RememberTheRoar]

D-Cat-Toews-Kane
Saad-Schmaltz-Sikura
Hino-Anisimov-Hayden

If you’re putting Toews into a full offensive role again anyway, I’d let him just play with Kane and a big body LW, like they successfully did when they were younger.

Then you have a really strong second line in DeBrincat-Schmaltz-Saad that should absolutely provide enough secondary scoring to support Toews and Kane together.

You’re then just missing a Kruger-style 3rd/4th line to take all the defensive zone draws that Toews won’t be able to take while playing with Kane.

So maybe something like —

Hayden-Toews-Kane
DeBrincat-Schmaltz-Saad (has potential to be one of most dangerous second lines in the league)
Hinostroza-Anisimov-Sikura
A fourth line that resembles the Shaw-Kruger-Desjardins line

 

[LordKOTL]

I think at this point most of us have seen a lot of Jokiharju, I simply do not see much resembling Leddy with him like you do. His positioning is better at this age, his defense is better than Leddy, his speed is not as good as Leddy and neither is his shot (Leddy has an underrated shot IMO), but I do not see Joker playing a similar game to Leddy. Will he be an up-tempo player that can skate/outlet pass out the zone quickly? Yes, but can he also be solid in his own end, he has shown nothing but positives there for me. Everything I saw with him during the playoffs impressed me more as he showed that balance of being able to play above average both sides of the puck..something Leddy simply couldn't do.

I am cool with changing pairings around, I just put 7 names together to see how we could balance things out. Joker doesn't need to be on the top pair, but I think injecting him there with Keith could be the best thing for both as Keith could get that spark back playing with this kid.

VVV

Jokiharju is to Leddy in the sense that they are both offensive defenseman but HJ is more refined in his own end and Leddy is a better skater. HJ strikes me as more confident at this point.

Basically what BK said, but Joker is a carry-the mail type which, unfortunately doesn't work in Q's outlet pass system but fortunately we shouldn't have to worry about Q's system more than about 1 year. Joker does have some weakness on the backend (not as much as Leddy) in that's he's more of an O-from-D mindset and occasionally gets caught, and if he tries to force an outlet pass he looks like Keith circa 2011--pass-to-nowhere. While that is fixable at this point, I think Joker would do much better with a more defensive-minded lefty to balance it. I think if those two were put together, Either Keith would have to reel in his O-game to cover for Joker, Joker would have to give up his O-game to cover for Keith, or they both don't and we're over-relying on Crawford again.