Hmmm, should we ice a virtually unstoppable line that blew up the league last season and gave us multiple winning streaks, while still allowing us to ice the world's best player on a different line? Hmmmmm.
Is the line "unstoppable"?
Thats an odd conclusion given that the actual time frame the line was together was a fairly shortlived heavily abbreviated segment, broke up by a 2 week rest and relaxation segment thanks to the ASG one week break and also by the Oilers one week NHLPA mandated break. Then having the season shorted by pandemic. It was stops and starts throughout, not sustained schedule of games.
No, we're talking about a short duration line opponents didn't scout, didn't have time to prepare for.
Lets look at the constituent ingredients of the line;
Draisaitl; Rarely stoppable for long and drives a lot of the play, and is integral. He's the only unstoppable on the line.
Nuge; A player that gets hot that typically can ride long periods where he's surfing around ,500ppg but then get a super hot stretch for 2mths of a season on a topline. Trouble is I rarely have felt that Nuge can sustain the ppg pacing for a full season. I think he suffers wear and tear with constant checking when he is being used as a feature producer.
Yamamoto; C'mon people. We're talking about a player with 30NHL career pts and saying he is a can't miss part of a line that is "unstoppable"? He had a 25% shooting string of fortune. Would expect the same player to be less than half of that through career.
I'm siding with others that the production pace of the Dry line wouldn't be maintained. They got some puck luck. Sure its a good line, no disputing that, but theres no way of knowing how the line endures NHL correction and scouting until that occurs.
I suspect we will see some mix up and shuffling of lines as befits our roster and ideal usage of two superstars to keep opponents guessing and having to deal with the different wrinkles. Standing pad on line configurations is NOT the best use of any of McD, Drai, or even Nuge.
