Line Combos: CBJ Roster Discussion/Line Combos/Injury Report

[GoJackets1]

With how the team is currently playing, it's exciting to know that we'll soon essentially be gaining another entire 1B line of forwards, plus a solid 4th liner. I know people are wary to mess with chemistry, but getting Boone, Chinny, Monahan, and Danforth back can only be a positive IMO. I'd construct it like this:

Voronkov-Monahan-Marchenko
No notes, this one is obvious.

Jenner-Fantilli-Chinakov
I keep going back and forth between pairing Jenner with Sillinger, and Jenner with Fantilli, but honestly, I don't think you could go wrong with either pairing. Both Silly and Fantilli need help in the D-zone and Boone would provide that. Went with this grouping because I want to set up Fantilli for as much offensive success as possible as well.

JvR-Sillinger-Johnson
JvR and Johnson can work well together, LDBB likely gets sent back down to play top minutes when these guys come back. Which I think is fine. JvR is the weak spot in the top 9, would be cool to get an upgrade there then we'd have two pretty damn solid middle 6 lines.

ZAR-Danforth/Kuraly-Olivier
Kuraly has really been fighting it recently. To the point where I think put Danforth in his spot for the time being if we're actually going to try to compete.

Kuraly/Labanc as extras. Pyyhtia has been playing pretty well but I would like him to play top minutes in Cleveland and maybe he can be a more integral bottom 6 piece next year.

 

[GoJackets1]

Big Nope ..We need defenseman good at playing defense

Said at the time of his call up, that we were likely essentially adding another top 4 plug and play defenseman. Well, looks like that's just what we got. Him and Provorov have been really good together, to the point where that fact alone kind of makes me want to resign Provorov. Having 2 pairs that can truly handle 20+ minutes a night is always great, and Provorov is both durable and an absolute workhorse.

 

[Viqsi]

In the spirit of certain other "Good Old Days With Players I Loved" suggestions, I wish to start advocating for reacquiring Blankenburg.

 

[TingleBiscuit]

In the spirit of certain other "Good Old Days With Players I Loved" suggestions, I wish to start advocating for reacquiring Blankenburg.

I was kind of hoping we'd keep at least one of our "surprisingly good, but only healthy for 30 games" D-men in Boqvist and Blanks. They're always good for 1/3 of the season...and never healthy for much more than that.

With that said, imagine being Nashville right now and having to know you waived Dante Fabbro and chose to keep....Nick Blankenburg. Boyo is still putting in work for us!

 

[Viqsi]

I was kind of hoping we'd keep at least one of our "surprisingly good, but only healthy for 30 games" D-men in Boqvist and Blanks. They're always good for 1/3 of the season...and never healthy for much more than that.

With that said, imagine being Nashville right now and having to know you waived Dante Fabbro and chose to keep....Nick Blankenburg. Boyo is still putting in work for us!

To be fair, Blanks is actually doing reasonably well down there at the moment alongside Skjei - which is impressive enough given just how poor Skjei had been to start the season. (He's slowly working his way up to "okay").

 

[GoJackets1]

To be fair, Blanks is actually doing reasonably well down there at the moment alongside Skjei - which is impressive enough given just how poor Skjei had been to start the season. (He's slowly working his way up to "okay").

Wow, Blanks being a +9 with pretty much the entire rest of the team deep in the minuses is actually very crazy. Haha

 

[TingleBiscuit]

To be fair, Blanks is actually doing reasonably well down there at the moment alongside Skjei - which is impressive enough given just how poor Skjei had been to start the season. (He's slowly working his way up to "okay").

And I want nothing but the best for him/them! So long as we keep Fabbro for free, no take-backs I'm unbothered, moisturized, happy, and flourishing in my lane over here!

In all honesty, if there was one season we actually don't need his teeny bull-in-china-shop energy to reinject juice into the team: it's this one! Meanwhile, I hope that intensely likeable guy knocks it out of the park!

 

[Viqsi]

Wow, Blanks being a +9 with pretty much the entire rest of the team deep in the minuses is actually very crazy. Haha

It helps that he came up midseason, around the start of that period for the Preds this year where the rest of the league starts to write off your team and play just a little bit lazier and consequentially you start getting a few more wins and some folks start interpreting that as "this is a sign of hope" without noticing that they're facing off against backup goaltenders all the time.

 

[CBJWerenski8]

 

[majormajor]

Said at the time of his call up, that we were likely essentially adding another top 4 plug and play defenseman. Well, looks like that's just what we got. Him and Provorov have been really good together, to the point where that fact alone kind of makes me want to resign Provorov. Having 2 pairs that can truly handle 20+ minutes a night is always great, and Provorov is both durable and an absolute workhorse.

FWIW Mateychuk - Provorov hasn't outscored opponents (yet). They might get there but there's no great results to beam about in terms of goal outcomes or xG at this point. Provorov had a stinker last night.

Have a look at our pairing results, it doesn't always match the discourse. Provorov-Fabbro was actually excellent in limited minutes. And Werenski-Provorov had virtually the same G and xG outcomes as Werenski-Fabbro. And my personal favorite mismatch with the discourse, since these two players rarely get respect: Christiansen - Severson remain our top xG pairing of the top ten combos we've used this year. They've also outscored opponents 15-11. And they were excellent again last night, giving up virtually nothing.

In the spirit of certain other "Good Old Days With Players I Loved" suggestions, I wish to start advocating for reacquiring Blankenburg.

That would be reasonable - I hear (and not just from you) that he's been one of Nashville's better D-men lately. But we have the same GM that just decided to let Blanks go and not sign him, so you have to think that he isn't interested in paying to reacquire him.

 

[Viqsi]

Just in case anyone noticed the waiver wire news today with our neighbors to the east and started getting some ideas and/or need to feel better about Elvis...

 

[Viqsi]

FWIW Mateychuk - Provorov hasn't outscored opponents (yet). They might get there but there's no great results to beam about in terms of goal outcomes or xG at this point. Provorov had a stinker last night.

Have a look at our pairing results, it doesn't always match the discourse. Provorov-Fabbro was actually excellent in limited minutes. And Werenski-Provorov had virtually the same G and xG outcomes as Werenski-Fabbro. And my personal favorite mismatch with the discourse, since these two players rarely get respect: Christiansen - Severson remain our top xG pairing of the top ten combos we've used this year. They've also outscored opponents 15-11. And they were excellent again last night, giving up virtually nothing.

They were also hardly ever on the ice - Christiansen was just a few seconds above 10 minutes that evening. I've not been paying close attention like I used to but I'm beginning to wonder if it's a sheltering thing for those two. (Not that that's a bad thing per se - teams need a third pairing too - but it'd increase the motivation to build up the middle pair.)

 

[SteelCityCannon]

Just in case anyone noticed the waiver wire news today with our neighbors to the east and started getting some ideas and/or need to feel better about Elvis...

That's an unmitigated disaster.

 

[Monstershockey]

Just in case anyone noticed the waiver wire news today with our neighbors to the east and started getting some ideas and/or need to feel better about Elvis...

This reminds me of when the Monsters had to go with Jeff Zatkoff as goalie because of injury. He was always scored on within the first 5 shots. Good times.

 

[GoJackets1]

FWIW Mateychuk - Provorov hasn't outscored opponents (yet). They might get there but there's no great results to beam about in terms of goal outcomes or xG at this point. Provorov had a stinker last night.

Have a look at our pairing results, it doesn't always match the discourse. Provorov-Fabbro was actually excellent in limited minutes. And Werenski-Provorov had virtually the same G and xG outcomes as Werenski-Fabbro. And my personal favorite mismatch with the discourse, since these two players rarely get respect: Christiansen - Severson remain our top xG pairing of the top ten combos we've used this year. They've also outscored opponents 15-11. And they were excellent again last night, giving up virtually nothing.



That would be reasonable - I hear (and not just from you) that he's been one of Nashville's better D-men lately. But we have the same GM that just decided to let Blanks go and not sign him, so you have to think that he isn't interested in paying to reacquire him.

Agree. You can see the potential for growth though, as I’m sure you see as well. Once Mateychuk’s scoring/playmaking abilities take off as he gets more comfortable, that will be a perfect second pair.

Also agreed on Christiansen-Severson. I have no idea why they went away from that when it was so clearly working. Both in numbers and eye test. It’s a perfect 3rd pair- too bad Severson is making what he does to be stuck on the 3rd pair. Although he did play great last night. The D as has been constructed the last few games is THE only correct combo as long as Guddy remains out IMO, and possibly even after that as well.

This reminds me of when the Monsters had to go with Jeff Zatkoff as goalie because of injury. He was always scored on within the first 5 shots. Good times.

That’s Miami University legend Jeff Zatkoff to you, sir.

 

[majormajor]

They were also hardly ever on the ice - Christiansen was just a few seconds above 10 minutes that evening. I've not been paying close attention like I used to but I'm beginning to wonder if it's a sheltering thing for those two. (Not that that's a bad thing per se - teams need a third pairing too - but it'd increase the motivation to build up the middle pair.)

True, but they should be given the benefit of the doubt since almost all of their time together was in the first quarter of the season when they were our second pair. They did the thing that people say they aren't capable of doing.

 

[Monstershockey]

That’s Miami University legend Jeff Zatkoff to you, sir.

In all fairness to Zatkoff, he did a huge favor for Kivlenieks as we tried to give him games before he was ready. Zatkoff relieved the pressure on him big time. Also, it was the end of his career.

Useless fact: Zatkoff was Pittsburgh's goalie at our first Jackets game. Unfortunately the Jackets lost. Pretty sure Neal had a hat trick that game.

 

[Doggy]

Thoughts on Vejmelka and would there be interest from the CBJ? Based on what other goalies this season have moved for I don't think the price should be that high.

Utah is likely a seller at the TDL. Tarasov gives them a younger goalie with potential and he's still under club control. I suspect we'd have to add a mid-tier sweetener to get it done (I don't really know what Utah needs).

We get a guy who looks like an improvement to Elvis and gives us a more respectable tandem for this season as we continue to compete for a playoff spot. Elvis is bought out this summer, Vejmelka gets a new deal to stay, and works with Jet as a 1-2 for next season.

Seems like a win-win, Utah gets pieces for their future, we get an upgrade for the second half of this season, and potentially our tandem for next season is set. My only caveat is that I want this deal done soon. This doesn't work for us as a TDL deal for me, I want the net upgrade now.