Sid is putting up points again, but I felt like that was going to happen the moment he put Rakell with him in the Canucks game, that always needed to be the move, it just took Sullivan forever to get there unfortunately. But it kind of makes Geno a giant decoy on that line, he was screwed with Bunting on his wing for the last 2 (Edm & Cgy) and then had JP and Raks vs the Jets, neither of those pairings helped him at all, but Beau & Rust did and Doc & Puusty are also fine with Geno when they've been tried.
Rakell with Sid was always the right call, but I don't think that LW needs Geno to be there, he needs to be back on his own line. I feel Sid with Rakell gets most of Sid's game back on track as we've seen in the last 2, Rakell just naturally has with his strong 2-way game and his shot now that his shoulder isn't out of whack. They gotta stop trying Doc with Sid this season, it hasn't worked well and oddly enough the best LW for Sid & Rakell has been Beauvillier, the speed of Beauvillier helps the two and they've controlled a lot of the play as a trio, creating a good amount of high danger chances and limited them as well, I think the trio deserved a longer look.
Beauvillier, Crosby, Rakell
O'Connor, Malkin, Puustinen
Bunting, Eller, Glass
Puljujarvi, Lizotte, Acciari
L2 - Doc, Eller, and Puustinen all had 1 shot each, they weren't bad, but I think Geno would get more out of the two young wingers. They both did a lot of good things, but couldn't get on the scoresheet, they had an amazing first shift that put the pressure on the Ducks early that allowed the Pens to change up on the fly and keep the pressure going where it felt like the first 5+ mins was all in the Duck end because of how well Doc-Eller-Puusty cycled and kept the puck deep.
L3 - 2 defensive wingers that can wreak some havoc with forechecking might get Bunting going, he had a better game vs Ducks
L4 - I'd give this a whirl, it's been great with Hayes there and maybe you roll with that as an option, but Hayes has had 2 terrible games, he should sit. JP is fine on his off wing, Lizotte is the better faceoff man between him and Acciari.
Bunting does play well with Glass, so that is encouraging enough to try.
I argued this all summer. Going into the season with DOC penciled in on the top line was crazy, but some folks on here kept going on about it's fine and how good the line looked down the stretch.
Sorry, but you can't replace a point per game player with a 30 point player and say, "everything's fine". DOC, no matter how good he is, isn't a top line player and isn't the answer to replacing a 35+ goal, 75+ point winger on Sid's wing. Especially when the other winger on the line is an often injured, incredibly streaky Rust.
I don't think anyone thought a player or two were going to replace Jake's production. At best, you hoped the usage would be better so you got some extra scoring out of other lines - Like Doc putting up 40+, Puustinen getting better usage to get 40+ (points, not goals), Bunting not falling off the face of the earth and producing his career average of 50+ and a healthy Rakell being back to 60+ would have mitigated that loss by committee, but we forgot the biggest X factor - Mike Sullivan. Sullivan still keeps doing the most bizarre things with his line-up, it takes him far too long to get to the right usage and then he will mess up more things to make one of the things work.
I didn't want to answer that on the NHL thread to derail it.
