After a peak at Traverse I’d be pretty comfortable with letting Kravstov ride shotgun to Panarin and Zbad where he can use his creativity and be the “least” of the opposing team’s worries, giving him some space to be dangerous. He’d undoubtedly thrive with those guys. Couldn’t see him not approaching 50 points on that line.
Kaako drives play more. I wouldn’t at all mind a second line of Kreider, Chytil, Kaako. This is not exactly chump change. Chytil should take a step and Kreider is a good vet who creates space. I think these two as our top lines would be quiet good.
Run Lemieux and Buchnevich on the wings on the third line. You can rotate any and all of Strome, Howden, Andersson and Namestnikov through center. Start with Strome probably. Lemieux has upside and his energy is contagious and would rub off well on all of those guys who might need a little extra kick in the pants, as he seemed to be a good influence on Buch last year. I like keeping them together. With a little chemistry that’s a very solid third line.
Fourth line is Namestnikov, Howden/Andersson, and Fast. I don’t like burying a kid on the fourth line but Namestnikov and Fast aren’t plugs like some fourth lines and they both have good two-way games. Could be a nice responsible line that takes advantage of some softer matchups.
We could definitely roll four lines with a fairly good distribution. Certainly not equal, but we don’t need to limit our fourth line to 6 minutes a game.
