Pre-Game Talk: Game 10: Kings vs. Red Wings

[Sydor25]

Good thing Sutter isn't panicking or anything:

Gagne – Kopitar – Brown
Clifford – Carter – Williams
King – Richards – Nolan
Richardson – Stoll – Fraser – Lewis

Ellerby – Doughty
Scuderi – Voynov
Martinez – Drewiske

Quick / Bernier

Penner is wearing a black jersey, complementing Muzzin.

Thoughts?

Click to read more...

 

[BigBrown]

Full on Terry Murray, but I actually like it.

 

[JureEe]

TM line shuffling

i like Defense pairing... but dont like that 4th line break.. (i guess that Stoll will center 4th line.. )

 

[BigBrown]

Not sure how I feel about Ellerby getting top pair. From what I hear he's a third pairing guy and this is really putting him on the spot right away. Sink or swim I guess.

 

[Luc Gretzky]

Honestly, on paper I like the look of this--each line is very balanced. Maybe Richards can settle down and just worry about playing great defensive hockey, and he played will with King and Nolan last year.

 

[JureEe]

Not sure how I feel about Ellerby getting top pair. From what I hear he's a third pairing guy and this is really putting him on the spot right away. Sink or swim I guess.

same as Blues with Redden.. first game, first pair with Pie..

 

[SettlementRichie10]

Why not? King and Nolan were put on Richards's wings the game they were called up last season against Dallas and each had a goal. We're getting virtually no third line anything with Stoll at the helm. Spread out the scoring. Gagne and Kopitar had some good chemistry at the beginning of last season; Williams seems like a good complimentary player for Carter; Stoll is on the line he belongs.

We'll see what happens, I guess.

This can also be a matchup response to Detroit's subpar bottom six. Getting Richards matchups against their bottom lines seems favorable, in theory.

 

[Basilisk]

King – Richards – Nolan

So the 2nd line from exactly one year ago now becomes the 3rd line? Well, at least we're getting deeper.....

 

[johnjm22]

I like it, but I would prefer Penner in the lineup over King.

 

[DeeMeck]

Not sure how I feel about Ellerby getting top pair. From what I hear he's a third pairing guy and this is really putting him on the spot right away. Sink or swim I guess.

I attribute this to Doughty no longer needing a presence like Scuderi around to school him.

I think it is more sink or swim for Doughty.

Scuderi with Voynov is going to make a recently hot Voynov even more dangerous.

 

[Papa Mocha 15]

I attribute this to Doughty no longer needing a presence like Scuderi around to school him.

I think it is more sink or swim for Doughty.

Scuderi with Voynov is going to make a recently hot Voynov even more dangerous.

Hope that's true. We're either gonna be surprised or get slaughtered. I don't see this being a close game.

 

[Papa Mocha 15]

I like it, but I would prefer Penner in the lineup over King.

Yeah, we should be trying to play Penner so we can give teams a recent look so he is more tradeable. Just put him out when Detroit's weaker players are on so he looks better and can get more than a 4 round pick for him.

 

[Chazz Reinhold]

There have been some people around here advocating a lineup of Kopitar-Carter-Richards-Stoll down the middle. Didn't take Sutter very long to go with that. I like it. Each of the top 3 lines should be a bit more of a scoring threat than they were before this season (considering the third line has provided nothing).

 

[damacles1156]

Better balance on these lines. The third line was a black hole of offense.

Richards will feed pucks to the young guys crashing the net.

Ellerby/Drew is fine, why not ? Scuds/Drew are playing WAY WAY too many minutes (that is starting to show).

Also it's really going to show the Kings staff what Ellerby has/doesn't have.

Might as well find out right away.

 

[Chazz Reinhold]

I don't see anything wrong with the way the D stacks up. The Kings have always put a stay-at-home with an offensive defenseman. It was pretty obvious Ellerby was at least going to be with Voynov considering Sutter has not been happy with Martinez. And like damacles said, the Scuderi-Doughty pairing has been a wreck defensively recently (most likely) due to their heavy minutes.

 

[deeshamrock]

This can also be a matchup response to Detroit's subpar bottom six. Getting Richards matchups against their bottom lines seems favorable, in theory.

That's a very good point and Babcock looking at Kopi-Carter and Richards on different lines will havea harder time shifting his lines.

At this point, Sutter has to try anyting to get some goals from this team. And the 4th line has been burned for quite a few goals and close calls. PUtting SToll there esp in the D zone faceoffs, give you a better shot at winning those and clearing the puck out of harms' way.

Richards was good with Nolan and King last year and although I think King has regressed a bit, Nolan has looked very good. That line will eb fine.

The first line should be fine, the 2nd line I have doubts about, I don't see that working at all.
But Sutter has to do something to get this team rolling again. And it doesn't mean they'll stay that way for the whole game. He has thrown together different lines during the game before. At this point, with the O sputtering, you need less goals going the other way and shifting the centers downward should do that. They need the 2 points tomorrow and winning 3-1 is better than losing 7-4.

Could be he knows enough of Ellerby to trust that he can do the job with Doughty. If he can use his size to be a solid shutdown guy and from what we've read, he's a good clearing passer, that might be enough. The D needed a shakeup.

 

[damacles1156]

Also the Time has come for guys like Lewis. Lewis should not be getting the amount of minutes he gets providing ZERO offense.

Lewis should be a fourth line/PK specialists. With the occasional bump to the third line to provide energy or injury relief.

The third line has to start providing offense. (Lewis) 23 Points in 155 NHL games(playing 15 minutes a night), that is like Defensive D man numbers.

Also Lewis brings very good defense to that fourth line.

It's also time to just part ways with Richardson and Penner. Both are expensive to sit in the stands. I would waive/trade/buyout those guys and get some propsects or vets to compete for those jobs.

Richardson/Penner is almost 5m Cap dollars sitting in the stands.

 

[Vamos Rafa]

Don't like Brown being back to RW. Brown excels at driving to the net with a better angle to shoot from.

 

[Muzzinga]

woah, Its like Sutter took my advice!

The only change id make is Clifford on the 3rd line in place of King, and Penner on the 2nd. Scratch King altogether

Good to see Doughty/Scuderi have finally been broken up, its for the best. I would have preferred Martinez on the top line and Ellerby 3rd, but thats just because of my man love for A-Mart

 

[kingsholygrail]

Brown is awful on the RW. Why do we keep going back to that?

 

[Reaper45]

I like it aside from Brown back on the RW.

 

[Captain Mittens*]

Brown would be better at Center than RW

 

[damacles1156]

Jesus guys,


Brown has scored the most Goals in his career from the right side....

He is a natural RW, Brown didn't start playing LW till last season.

Does Brown drive the net better on LW ? Yes. Does he score better at LW......NO!!!.

His career numbers are from the right side. He has played his entire Career from the Right side.

Four of Dustin's Five points are from the PP. So it's not like he was lighting it up from the LW. His play has been bad just like the rest of the first line.

 

[goosh]

I really like the dman pairings. Doughty doesn't need to be babied anymore and Scuds is the perfect partner for Slava.

The forward lines are ... interesting?

 

[Ollie Weeks]

When Brown heats up, it won't matter what wing he's on. His play honestly can't be any worse than it was earlier this year at even strength anyway.

The move also allows more Playfulness from Sutter on the left wing. In a perfect world, gagne penner Clifford and king can all go on the left side.

I also like the idea of Richards and stoll as the 3/4 combo. We put our centre depth to absolute usage, and now we sprinkle our excess wingers throughout the roster. It's an interesting way of interlocking the spare parts we have.