Mr. Canucklehead
Kitimat Canuck
I get what he's doing. The modern NHL is about rolling 3 lines that can score. This is a departure from what Tocchet used to work with when he first started in the league:
Dependable 1st line
Average 2nd line
Checking line
Goon squad/Energy line
That said, he's really trying to unlock offense across 3 lines when we don't have the guys to do this. Lafferty, Blueger, Suter, Mikheyev, Podkolzin, and PDG have largely regressed back to their norm or are just never going to provide you regular scoring. Hell, even McDavid couldn't help Connor Brown score. It's just best to do the simple things, even if it means employing old tactics.
I wish he had focused on keeping the top 6 as is (Pettersson, Miller, Boeser, Hoglander, Garland and Joshua/Lindholm) and done some adjustments in the bottom 6 to see if we could unlock an effective checking line.
To have success in the post-season, any and every team needs guys like the bolded to get hot at the right time. Doesn't have to be for an entire stretch run, but the likes of them absolutely must chip in the odd goal here and there. They all had pretty hot starts to the year before cooling off considerably - hopefully they can take turns heating up in the post season.