News Article: Ottawa Senators “Untouchable” Prospects

[Xspyrit]

"First liner" is an arbitrary term. If you throw a career third liner on the first line due to an injury, is he automatically a first line player? There are other situations where non-first line talents get put on the first line (experimenting, creating a spark during a slump, etc).

JD1 asked me what my definition of a "first liner" was. I don't think you're a first line talent simply by virtue of playing a game on the first line. That's why I said that I use the term in conjunction with "star".

Some 3rd liner could do well in that situation but most wouldn't give you the usual production of your first liner. We've seen this many times in Ottawa due to constant injuries. Remember Zack Smith? He was a good 3rd liner in his prime, he got a chance in 2015-16 and ended up with 25 goals. However there's been other times that he was called upon to produce and he didn't.

But what I am saying is that "first liner" should be a wider term because logically, there should be 93 first liners in the NHL.

But seriously all these terms create more confusion than anything, you will rarely have some kind of concensus and everybody interpret them differently

Personally, I try to use "1st line production level", i.e. if a player constantly puts up 55-60+ points, he is a 1st liner to me.

 

[jhutter]

Some 3rd liner could do well in that situation but most wouldn't give you the usual production of your first liner. We've seen this many times in Ottawa due to constant injuries. Remember Zack Smith? He was a good 3rd liner in his prime, he got a chance in 2015-16 and ended up with 25 goals. However there's been other times that he was called upon to produce and he didn't.

But what I am saying is that "first liner" should be a wider term because logically, there should be 93 first liners in the NHL.

But seriously all these terms create more confusion than anything, you will rarely have some kind of concensus and everybody interpret them differently

Personally, I try to use "1st line production level", i.e. if a player constantly puts up 55-60+ points, he is a 1st liner to me.

For sure. Like I said, it's an arbitrary term. "1st line production level" is fine.