GDT: Game 1: Red Wings vs penguins 8:00 pm et 10/10/24

[The Red Line]

Teams all over the league toss kids that can score and not much else into their scoring lines. Hard to prove much of anything if the bulk of your NHL experience is with Veleno and Czarnik. And he scored 15 goals in such a deployment. He could easily drop 20g 30p this season with 2nd line PP2 icetime. But he's gotta be a grinder first...

20 goals and 30 points would be awful production if he was on the second line and the PP. All of the other players in the top 6 significantly out scored that margin last season.

I’m all for giving a kid opportunities to succeed but not that expense of legitimately better players, especially when Berggren doesn’t bring anything else to the role besides (theoretical) offense.

 

[norrisnick]

How many standings points do rookie games count for?

Experience seems to matter more than anything. So knocking out rookie games and getting experience should count for a lot, right?

 

[jaster]

Maybe let them create one before judging. I mean that's pretty the job Veleno and Berggren have this season. Prove they have something to bring to the lineup that make them valuable over Kasper, Mazur, Danielson etc. breathing down their necks.
It's a spare parts line because none of them are going to get a free ride to playing 82 games. Prove it or lose it.

"Identity" is just one way to look at it. Fine, let them try to create an identity I guess. But in the more tangible short-term, what is this line? What are they supposed to do? What is their assignment out there? What's their deployment? The NHL isn't just 'make some lines and toss them out there.' Every line must have a purpose. It's clear what that is for the top 3 lines. This one though is...

 

[SirloinUB]

Experience seems to matter more than anything. So knocking out rookie games and getting experience should count for a lot, right?

5 players under the age of 21 can still gain some experience and learn the pro game while maturing in the AHL. There is lots of time to integrate these kids on to the NHL roster. Their whole future is still ahead of them.

 

[FabricDetails]

Let's goooooooo!!!!!

 

[DatsDeking]

My issue with that 4th line is that it has zero identity.

Berg-Veleno-Ras
Motte-Copp-Fisher

At least that sort of makes sense. You have a shutdown line and maybe one with a little more offensive potential. Would prefer Kasper centering that line, but as he's not there, I could live with this. Depending on if we need D or Offensive the ensuing line plays more.

Our current 4th line very much screams spare parts.

With that said I'm expecting a total jumble within 10 games as I don't see this current forward lineup working well overall unless the DBC-Larkin-Raymond line starts scoring at a crazy pace. Tank doesn't have a great history at LW and that 2nd line only works if he and Kane click.

That’s been my issue with the Berg-Veleno line too. I’ve been treating our Ras-Copp-Fischer line as our de facto fourth line shut down line but then that just leaves us with a pretty lame third line.