Speculation: Another year of this Bluc **** (The 2024 season thread)

[Surf Nutz]

That's funny. The Kings should've tried that with Cliff Ronning and Anson Carter.

Isn't Kuz like 10 years younger than when those guys were shipwrecked on the Kings?

Big difference if so.

Well maybe its more like 5.

I guess your comparison is reasonable.

Don't know if you looked at the attachments but there ain't shit to sign otherwise.

3.5 ain't jack either even if you end up 4.5.

After looking it up Anson did great and Ronning fair.

So you are also interested in extending Kuz?

 

[Telos]

They should look to keeping Kuz, but while he has passed the eye test and balanced the lines, he has got to get some points here soon and find some chemistry with the guys. No way his agent pulls the trigger on a deal before the end of the season.

 

[Surf Nutz]

They should look to keeping Kuz, but while he has passed the eye test and balanced the lines, he has got to get some points here soon and find some chemistry with the guys. No way his agent pulls the trigger on a deal before the end of the season.

Hmm, 8 years might be tempting.

 

[King'sPawn]

I remember being lectured how much the 4th line doesn't matter when the others aren't producing

but that completely ignores the domino effect of having the 4th line that effectively handles minutes and moves the puck up ice so you're not digging yourself out of your own zone with the other team having built momentum running over a corpse.

The results rippling thru the lineup aren't a coincidence.

There's still merit to the argument. A fourth line is depth, and it tilts the scales when all other things are equal.

But if Byfield, Fiala, Kopitar, etc stop producing, the fourth line isn't going to win you games alone.

That fourth line without Lewis hasn't been putting up points, either.

 

[Chazz Reinhold]

There's still merit to the argument. A fourth line is depth, and it tilts the scales when all other things are equal.

But if Byfield, Fiala, Kopitar, etc stop producing, the fourth line isn't going to win you games alone.

That fourth line without Lewis hasn't been putting up points, either.

The fourth line without Lewis hasn't been getting caved in like it was with Lewis. There's a chasm of a difference between being net neutral and net negative.

 

[Statto]

There's still merit to the argument. A fourth line is depth, and it tilts the scales when all other things are equal.

But if Byfield, Fiala, Kopitar, etc stop producing, the fourth line isn't going to win you games alone.

That fourth line without Lewis hasn't been putting up points, either.

Your point about tipping the ice is key. If they can eat some reasonable minutes without costing us then it’s a win. If they can chip in the odd goal and be a net positive it becomes a difference maker… as you say when all else is equal.

If they can be trusted enough to shave a minute or so off the minutes of the top guys they can, indirectly, be a difference maker in a PO series.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Your point about tipping the ice is key. If they can eat some reasonable minutes without costing us then it’s a win. If they can chip in the odd goal and be a net positive it becomes a difference maker… as you say when all else is equal.

If they can be trusted enough to shave a minute or so off the minutes of the top guys they can, indirectly, be a difference maker in a PO series.

Exactly.

They might not win us a game

But they can't be actively losing us games. LIterally--Lewis, Burroughs and the fringe corpses were doing that. Yes, there was a scoring drought--one of the ripple effects of having 2-4 literally unplayable players a night getting pushed back into our zone (and playing 5 non-puck moving dmen) is that we had 9 forwards a night, some of whom are closer to retirement than their prime, starting shifts repeatedly in our dzone. Look at the possession/shot charts with and without some of those guys, it's bonkers, and literally the difference between lottery and league-top-3.

I guess my point was people were selling short how a bad 4th line (really forwards 10-11, since it wasn't a full line) hurts.