Hamonic is wearing a full contact jersey and is doing four drills with the team at practice today. Good signs.
For what it's worth, it looks like Regin may be the guy to go when Hamonic is ready to come off IR. New lines today and he's being phased out.
Thank the God of Hockey if this last part comes to fruition, but I know my hope in a randomly better line combination will be short-lived. Having said that last little disclaimer, the line with Regin, Nielsen and Bailey was just a horrible idea. If Regin is truly being phased out, at least it changes that one line combo. Sadly, its replacement will probably still be poorly imagined when it's done.
I wouldn't mind if Regin was dropped to 4th line center, but only because of what you could then do with the rest of the lineup. I realize our 4th line has been effective, but Cizikas has way more offense in him than Regin while Regin wouldn't be totally worthless in a 4th line role.
I mean, does this not look more balanced(?):
Vanek-JT-KO
Bailey-Nelson-Nielsen
Grabner-Cizikas-Clutterbuck
Martin-Regin-McDonald
I know I'm asking for miracles that they actually move Nielsen to the right side, but we really need to try him there already (for a lot of reasons.) The left side is up for debate, mostly Grabner and Bailey, but I think you need to take a look at our current contracts and get an idea for the future of this lineup. We should have put something like this together much earlier. (If anyone cares for me to continue this line of thought, I might simply look for a more relevant thread to continue it. I have a ton of reasoning behind this which I'm obviously overly willing to share.
)
More on topic, I hope Hamonic stays symptom free. It would be terrible to see his career ended early from any of this. I've been back and forth between KO and Hammer for my next jersey going back to last season. Pains me to not see the kid in the lineup almost as much as it pains me to see AMac getting too many minutes.
,
Mitch
