I'm usually the first guy to get onto people for falling in love with depth players, but damn, we seem to really miss Kruger. While Kruger would be great, I think it's more the mindset of the fourth line that needs adjusting. The relentless forcheck by the 4th line is cool and all, but I see our center getting caught deep way too often to try and keep plays alive. Maybe this is why Q has been more reluctant to match the 4th with one of the top two lines? I don't have figures to back this up because I'm not a stats guy, but it seems like Q has been trying to match 4th on 3rd or 4th on 4th. Toews has always had the tough deployments, but Kane is having to deal with a lot more attention as a result. Kane's numbers are definitely still strong and all, but I can't be the only one noticing him being bottled up for 90% of most games. I think it has much more to do with the deployment strategy than losing the Breadman.
I think its either a lack of confidence in the 4th line to deploy them in a defensive matter, or some kind of completely new tactical approach by Q. Either the 4th needs to be a dominant possession line matched against inferior bottom-6 talent, a 4th line of speedsters deployed with the proper D-men to spring them, or we need the offensive black hole 4th line that helps us gain favorable match-ups. Right now I see a bunch of good parts and no real strategy for the 4th line.
You're pretty much bang on in your assessments.
We traded a team-wide advantage in matchups for a
marginal increase in scoring at the bottom of our lineup. It's a big net negative.
The reality of the cap is such that we couldn't afford Kruger on his current contract. If the cap weren't an issue, I'd happily pay Kruger double what we pay Bouma and Wingels combined to do far less.
It was just such a dumb, retrograde decision purely from a tactical standpoint, regardless of talent. The Blackhawks were ahead of the curve by getting rid of a traditional energy line and instead going with 3 scoring lines and a shutdown line (or, more specifically, a hard-match possession line, a scoring line, a bum-slayer line and a defensive shutdown line). And the copy-cat NHL followed their lead when it lead to great success. LA and PIT ran the same formula.
But somehow Stan and company got it into their heads that Nashville swept the Blackhawks cause they beat us up, rather than because they skated us out of the building every night. SO he went out and signed GRIT, instead of you know, useful hockey players.
At least he's addressed the youth and speed issue since. Hopefully the end of Wingels and Bouma's one-year deals will be the end of this retrograde, backwards nonsense on the 4th line and we can get back to having a Kruger-type making everybody else's lives easier.
My anger can be tempered though, by immediately calling up the returned lost son Clendening, he must be the difference maker we've been searching for since the glory days!
