Line Combos: Once Thornton and Robertson return

[Twine Tickler]

I really think Hyman needs to be on the Second line with Willy and JT. In the 11 minutes that they have played together at 5v5 they have a 76% CF and a 91.92% xGF in comparison to the 146minutes JT and willy have played together w/o Zach they sit at 51% CF and 52% xGF. Now of course the 11 minute sample size of all of them together is small, and we'd expect to see some regresion from those numbers. But it is clear it worked. I assume most of that data has been pulled from multiple games rather than just1 game, because I believe Hyman has been on either the Matthews Line or Kerfoot line. I'd really like to see this explored more in depth

Thornton - Matthews - Marner
Hyman - Tavares -Willy
Robertson - Kerf - Simmonds
Micheyev - Boyd - Spezza

 

[jaric1862]

XXX=Trade target


Thornton-Matthews-Marner
Robertson/XXX-Tavares-Nylander
Mikheyev-Kerfoot-Hyman
Vesey-Spezza-Simmonds

Rielly-Brodie
Muzzin-Holl
Dermott-Bogosian

Andersen-Campbell

 

[zeke]

All combos with min 5min played

Line 1

Thornton-Matthews-Marner 75.1xgf%
Tavares-Matthews-Nylander 75.0xgf%
Hyman-Matthews-Marner 63.6xgf%
Tavares-Matthews-Marner 57.9xgf%
Nylander-Matthews-Marner 57.5xgf%
Vesey-Matthews-Marner 45.8xgf% ← only combo that didn't dominate

Obviously Matthews/Marner works with most anyone. The only game they were poor was with vesey. Makes sense to stick Thornton back here to see if it works out.


Line 2

Nylander-Tavares-Hyman 89.4xgf% ← the best Tavares combo this year
Nylander-Tavares-Simmonds 72.4xgf% ← surprisingly good with simmonds
Nylander-Tavares-Vesey 49.6xgf%
Hyman-Tavares-Marner 40.3xgf%
Nylander-Tavares-Mikheyev 34.7xgf% ← simply not working with Mikheyev

2nd line just wasn't working at all with mikheyev for whatever reason. Their best combo this year was with Hyman for one game, so I hope this works just as well again. Surprisingly, the line looked legit really good with Simmonds, too, so that's still an option when he comes back.


Line 3

Mikheyev-Kerfoot-Simmonds 66.7xgf% ← nice
Mikheyev-Engvall-Simmonds 66.7xgf% ← nice
Vesey-Kerfoot-Simmonds 53.0xgf%
Hyman-Kerfoot-Mikheyev 52.2xgf%
Vesey-Kerfoot-Nylander 50.9xgf%
Vesey-Kerfoot-Engvall 49.2xgf%
Vesey-Kerfoot-Mikheyev 47.0xgf%

3rd line has been mostly just ok, with the exception of those 2 1-gm combos with both mikheyev and simmonds with different centers. Again, surprising stuff from simmonds, and another option when he comes back. We have yet to see the Mikheyev-Kerfoot-Engvall combo but I've been hoping to see it from day one and really think it will work.


Line 4

Petan-Boyd-Spezza 67.8xgf%
Barabanov-Engvall-Spezza 66.1xgf%
Engvall-Boyd-Anderson 36.7xgf%
Barabanov-Boyd-Spezza 32.7xgf%
Barabanov-Spezza-Simmonds 14.8xgf%

Small samples all so tough to tell. In general, though, I'm glad barabanov is out. And I don't think Spezza should play center.



So with the practice lines today we are actually getting the most successful version of both line 1 and line 2 that we've seen this year, which should be a good place to start.

All eyes on the new 3rd line though to see if it works.

The surprising result here is that Simmonds has seemed to show that he's legit top-9 material in a number of different combos.

 

[jaric1862]

Wouldn’t mind giving galchenyuk a look with Tavares and Nylander...why not

 

[Auston Powers]

From what I have seen so far this season and if all are healthy this is what I would like to see...

Robertson Matthews Marner (Catch me if you can)
Hyman Tavares Boyd (K.I.S.S - North South)
Mykhaelev Nylander Kerfoot (Circle Circle Jump - Circle Circle Jump - repeat..)
Simmonds Thornton Spezza ("Slow ride, take it easy")