It's a cliche, but it's true - if you want to win in the playoffs, your best guys have to be your best guys. If you finish a playoff series and you are first commenting on how well your young guys and your role players played, you probably lost. Therefore, they absolutely have to give the the top guns more ice time. It's going to be the 2002 and 2003 birthdays leading the way on Thursday if we want to tie the series - this rolling four lines stuff to save guys for the later rounds is great while you are winning, but we aren't anymore. Looking for a lot more from Morrison and Minty on Thursday...
This is 100% true. Run out our horses. Even if you have to condense into 2 scoring lines and make a 3rd line that hopefully won’t hurt you, then do it.
Beck - Tolnai - Stonehouse (24 minutes)
Pinelli - Morrison - Rohrer (24 minutes)
Gerrior - Gardiner - Foster (12 minutes)
Barlas - XXX - Mews (these guys sub in and take a shift here and there but do not play at the same time. Helps keep the wingers fresh)
Defense pairings:
Mintyukov - Matier (18 minutes)
Mayich - Matier (10 minutes)
Mintyukov - Marrelli (10 minutes)
Sirman - Costantini (12 minutes)
Mayich - Smyth (10 minutes)
To me, from a division of minutes to get you through 60 minutes, this is the ideal situation. Matier and Mintyukov play as the primary pairing for a full 18 minutes. They double shift for ten minutes each with Mayich and Marrelli. Mayich still gets close to 20 minutes as the #3 Playing with Matier and Smyth. The rest fills in as needed with around 10-12 minutes each.
Matier & Mintyukov - 28 minutes each
Mayich - 20 minutes
Sirman and Costantini - 12 minutes each
Smyth and Marrelli - 10 minutes each
Mews moves up to forward. He has an offensive gift and can help in that regard.
I can accept losing running out our horses. I cannot accept losing with Matier, Mintyukov, Morrison and Tolnai playing 18-20 minutes per game.