Pre-Game Talk: Panthers @ Leafs 7pm EST March 13th

[seanlinden]

I think the lines decision is about trying to formulate a 3rd line that can be better than its parts, and an absolute pain in the neck for opponents.

McMann-Laughton-Domi, at least on paper, have those qualities. All 3 are more than willing to play in the dirty areas. Laughton & Domi are "middleweight tough", and McMann is the kind of guy that can absolutely burn you with a backbreaking goal on a potentially routine play.

Would I prefer to see our 2nd line be McMann-Tavares-Robertson; or our first line be Knies-Matthews-Domi? yeah. But I also get the sense that Laughton isn't really good enough to centre a Nylander or Marner-level player.

Here's the crazy thought of the day...

Knies-Matthews-Domi
Nylander-Laughton-Marner
McMann-Tavares-Robertson
Lorentz-Kampf-Jarnrkok

As a road lineup in the playoffs, kind of makes it impossible to match up against. Our big guns are all smart players, give the opposition looks they've never seen before and cannot gameplan against.

 

[ponder]

Really wish Berube would experiment more - that 3rd line has looked bad so far.

IMO trying 3 balanced lines would be a worthwhile experiment, something like:

Knies - Matthews - Domi
Jarnkrok - Tavares - Willy
McMann - Laughton - Marner

Minimal ES minutes for the 4th line, pretty even minutes for the top 3 lines. Then of course Matthews and Marner still getting heavy minutes overall due to heavy deployment on both the PP and PK.

Right now we spend too much of games hemmed into our own end, while I think if those 3 lines had almost all the ES minutes, that’d happen way less.

 

[Confucius]

Really wish Berube would experiment more - that 3rd line has looked bad so far.

IMO trying 3 balanced lines would be a worthwhile experiment, something like:

Knies - Matthews - Domi
Jarnkrok - Tavares - Willy
McMann - Laughton - Marner

Minimal ES minutes for the 4th line, pretty even minutes for the top 3 lines. Then of course Matthews and Marner still getting heavy minutes overall due to heavy deployment on both the PP and PK.

Right now we spend too much of games hemmed into our own end, while I think if those 3 lines had almost all the ES minutes, that’d happen way less.

Great example of why having more than 2 super stars is just bad for a team. Now we want to put an 11 million dollar player on the 3rd line where he’ll receive 12 minutes toi.