They really have two 1st lines, or two 2nd lines. Rossi is playing with Rau and Shaw a lot. Sometimes Chaffee, too. Say what you want about Rau, but he is a very good AHL player, and Shaw is good too. Chaffee has to be a guy who they are thinking of bringing up- at 23-4 yo, it's now or never. I think Army has a lot of faith in Dewar, especially as an all zones C, so he hands a lot TOI to him, also.
Bottom line is that Rossi is getting lots of prime TOI, but Dewar is squeezing that a bit, and justifiably, IMO. Rossi still looks good to me, and i sometimes wonder if his smart play with the puck is lost in the AHL, as plays often die on the stick of his linemates. Would be very interested to see him play with fiala and Boldy, as they are two very smart, skilled players... I think he could do a lot of nice things with them. There is defeintely room for improvement in rossi's game, though, and he seems to be tailing off a bit in the past 2-3 weeks. Maybe losing energy after a long, hard season... remember, he might still be fighting fatigue from covid, and he is still very young.
Beckman is the guy who has seemed to be getting the short end of the stick for quite a long time in terms of line assignment. He needs to work on making quicker decisions and not being so obvious about when he shoots, but i like a lot of things about his game. His speed looks good, he works hard, decent passer, still has the nice shot. I really think that putting on 10 good pounds on his long frame would do wonders for him.
Swaney had a SO winner last night . Unusual move. Came in with speed, braced as if to shoot, goalie committed, then he deked forehand into an open net. I can't recall ever seeing that move before. Rossi didn't scorein SO, Dewar did...that's sort of the way it's been going. Rossi's got competition.
