Looking at top 62 LW& RW the median is 1050 even minutes.
Bottom of top 6 wing play is 850 minutes.
The median of starting 3C is 990 min.
50 % would be 495 minutes.
Mcdavid had 1465 EVTOI
RNH had 1265 EVTOI
Draisaitl played 888 with Mcdavid as 1st line winger.
Would like to see him get 50+% (500min ) at 3C and (990-1000) on mcdavid’s wing.
That way he is starting 1st line winger and starting 3C for most games of the season.
Draisaitl played 1483 EVTOI last year.
18:05 per gm
500/82 = 6:06 per gm at 3C
990/82 = 12:04 per gm at 1W
Tippet has stated his desire is to have 3 consistent offensive pairs.
Drai - McDavid - xxx
Neal - RNH - xxx
Granlund - xxx - Archibald
Studying Neal he usually gets 1050 EVTOI per season.
Question is do we treat the RNH pair like a top line.
Teams give their top lines from 790 ev min ( Bergeron - Marchand) to 1240 ev min (Schiefle - Wheeler) together.
Third line wingers see 730:00 to 890:00
Median being 810:00
How much of Draisaitls 500 min at 3C is with
Granlund #60 LW 10 evg
and
Archibald. #51 RW 12 evg
That is 2 - 2 Nd line ( top 62) evg scoring wingers for their position.
Last year
Kassian #37 RW 14 evg got 1063 ev min.
436 with Mcdavid; 193 with RNH.
Chaisson #43 RW 13 evg got 1002 ev min.
315 with RNH; 305 with Mcdavid
It is never realistic to say a winger is 1st line, 2nd line, 3 rd line.
Even the best off pairs may only get 60% of their ev min together.
You just look at what time they get with each center.
Drai - McDavid - xxx 990 ev min 990/1465 = 67.6%
Neal - RNH - xxx 800 ev min 800/1265 = 63.2%
Granlund - xxx - Archibald 620 ev min 620/990 = 62.6%
Makes a lot of sense with pairs based on centers ev min.
That leaves (2x 1465) - 990 = 1940 ev min of mcdavids non Draisaitl time for other wingers.
That leaves (2x 1265) - 800 = 1730 ev min of RNH non Neal time for other wingers.
Since getting and preventing goals wins games
Holland clearly was after top double digit evg scoring wingers and some special team performers to add to our July 1 roster
Traded for Neal 16-17 & 17-18 #15 LW 38 evg same as Hall, Forsberg
UFA Chaisson (2.15M) #43 RW evg, Top 45 fwd 8 ppg goals.
UFA Archibald (1M) 51 RW evg, Top 15 PK foreard
UFA Granlund (1.3M) #60 LW evg
UFA Jurco(.75M) 17-18 top 20 LW 1.02 evg/60
UFA Nygard (.925M) #2 goal scorer SHL.
6 top 6 fwd wingers with evg production or NHLE to add to
Top 6 evg wingers Draisaitl & Kassian.
Lots of Mcd (1940), RNH (1730), Draisaitl (1000), & other 3 C (980) time at top 9 center (5650 min) to be spread between wingers.
Kassian
Chaisson
Neal (250 min)
Granlund
Archibald
Jurco
Nygard
Gagner ( likely to see 3C time)
Khaira 17-18 #59 LW 10 evg same as Pacioretty, steen, burakovsky
Most NHL teams run a DZ FO start heavy 4th line so their top 9 fwds can have 50+% Off zone FO starts.
A thankless demanding role that yields almost no off production during DZ FO starts.
But it provides top 9 an opportunity to outscore the opposition.
Gambardella 15gm 30.00%
Malone 16gm 30.77%
Brodziak 70gm 31.75%
Currie 21gm 37.74%
Gagner 25gm 38.39%, amazing top 30 RW .95 evg/60
Cave 33gm 41.18%
Archibald 45.98%, yet was #51 RW 12 evg
Khaira 60 gm 46.22%
RNH 82gm 47.78%, #32 C 19 evg
Haas was brought in as a DZ, zone transition and off driver thru skating speed.
Khaira - Brodziak - Gagner/ Haas as a 4 th line
With Gagner & Haas getting 3C time.
Khaira & Gagner getting Mcd & RNH wing time.
This is a realistic look at veteran NHL & European pro roster depth in regards to even player usage.
Must remember when I looked at Holland 21 yr history of 35+ gm season debut for prospects in Detroit, he prefers 23 yr old debuts with veteran forward depth.
Prospects Gambardella(25) & Currie (26) showed 14+ evg NHLe last year in AHL.
And
Had brutal DZ role last yr in Edm.
These Prospects had sub 10 evg NHLe
Marody (22)
Benson (21)
Yamamotto (20)
Safin (20)
Mcleod (19)
We got 38 evg from 7.20 forwards seasons of games from 18 forwards. 5.28 evg per forward.
Holland is looking for as high an average of evg from bottom 7.
He grabbed forwards with greater than 14 evg production with a 50+% Off FO start Top 9 min role.
Holland stated the off season signings was about rosters in the future.
This is how real team player usage is.