Again, the third line played poorly, so it essentially became a 4th line. There just wasn't anywhere to stash Drouin where he wasn't a giant liability. And there wasn't really anyone in the press box who could capably take his place (it sure as hell wasn't going to be Miles Wood after that giant f***up that cost them in game 3). Kivi and Coyle were just plain bad down the stretch (WTF Kivi where was that playoff hero we saw when you were playing for Dallas!?).
I don't know the exact totals of the 4th line's minutes but I saw them plenty in game 7.
And let's not forget, he had the 4th line out there in the closing minutes of a tie game and Drury took the dumb penalty that ultimately cost them the game and series.
And no, you can't just sit there and say F*CKING PLAY THEM when they had the worst goaltending by far in the entire league, no 2nd line center, 3rd line center, or really 4th line center to speak of. If they had truly rolled 4 lines like you keep suggesting they would be getting blown the f*** out every night. There is no coach anywhere in any league, any era, who would do that. Not Scotty Bowman, not Jon Cooper, not Punch Imlach, no one. No coach would throw games like that in order to avoid player burnout.
He played the depth that he had when he finally had it. It's more on management for failing to get that depth in the first place and then scrambling later to acquire it at a higher cost. If they truly want to be a contender next year, then they need to find a way to have a more complete roster in October. NOT March. The good news is they already have their 3C and 4C figured out. Bad news is they have virtually no futures to trade to acquire a 2C, so we'll see what they do.
