Do I believe that Granlund could execute the 4C duties in this team without much complaints? Absolutely. However, there's depth and then there's "depth". We have a plenty of good high-profile forwards on paper, but how many do we really have, judging by their actual production? While we shouldn't draw too hasty conclusions with a mere 10 game sample size, right now we have seven forwards who are hitting the coveted PPG mark in the season so far: Aho, Teräväinen, Puljujärvi, Barkov, Rantanen, Laine (hopefully he can keep it up once his injury's healed) and Granlund. On top of them, we have two guys roughly on the 0.5PPG pace: Donskoi and Kapanen. Then we have a couple of curious cases in Hintz and Tolvanen, who appear a bit snakebitten in the sense that they're doing a lot of stuff right, but can't just find the net. Of the names present in the top-9 speculations, Kakko has been a bit of a disappointment - both productionwise and how he looks in general. (But he still has time to turn it around.)
If we had around 8-9 forwards producing on the same pace as Granlund, I'd see no problem placing him in a more defensive role. But right now, we have only six besides him. So, I guess the question boils down to: what do we want our third line to be? Should we attempt to build a third scoring unit or a more traditional energy line? Without Granlund, we have do have decent tools for the latter (as usual), but if we want it to be a constant scoring threat, then dropping Granlund outside the top-9 does feel like a bit of a waste. Especially since he's far from our only option for playing that 4C role - I know I've been promoting Haula, but any of the three big L's - Luostarinen, Lammikko and Lundell - would do as well.
So, we have five people who can play 4C roughly to the equal measure, but if we place Granlund into the slot, then we'd end up having a lesser option in a top-9 winger role. And special teams are likely a consideration as well - we can safely say that Granny will be in one of the PP units, no matter his 5-on-5 role. And the line that usually goes out following PP is the bottom one - which would mean that somebody else would have to take that shift anyway as Granny's on the bench cooling his heels.
To sum up, I'm not calling Granlund as 4C a completely outlandish idea, but I'm not sold on the pros outweighing the cons.
Sorry for the late reply on both of you guys' posts. We aren't so thin on wingers position either in my opinion.
This was my original suggestion on our forward lines:
Patrik Laine - Aleksander Barkov - Mikko Rantanen
Teuvo Teräväinen - Sebastian Aho - Jesse Puljujärvi
Kasperi Kapanen - Roope Hintz - Joonas Donskoi
Kaapo Kakko - Mikael Granlund - Joel Armia
It still stands that it's very hard to drop a single player out of that line up but is a role switch possible? If one player is swapped out then yes. Granny to wing is the other good option as you both and many others here suggested and in that case it seems more and more likely that Lundell is brought in as the #4 center. Those PK minutes Lundell is getting and last game he got most ice time only losing to Huberdeau (Barkov didn't play) out of the Panthers' forwards. Those are some very impressive things for a rookie. We don't miss Mikko Koivu that much because we got a similar one growing.
So I like both of the ideas when it comes to the usage of Granny as wing or center. I still lean a bit towards Granny as #4 center, because I'm not sure if Lundell is experienced enough when The Olympics will hit. The Olympics are maybe coming bit too soon for Lundell, so it's interesting to see whether Jalonen would trust Lundell enough yet to give him that role or not. However I see Lundell beating all the other remaining center candidates, which includes Haula, Luostarinen, Lammikko, Filppula, Kupari and Björninen.
Patrik Laine - Aleksander Barkov - Mikko Rantanen
Teuvo Teräväinen - Sebastian Aho - Jesse Puljujärvi
Mikael Granlund - Roope Hintz - Kasperi Kapanen
Joel Armia - Anton Lundell - Joonas Donskoi
Also since Kakko and especially Tolvanen who can't seem to produce points on a pace that we'd like to see are lowering their stocks in making the active roster, I think that Lehkonen has become a viable option to be in the line up as well. He's a solid defensive winger and I believe that he has played quite a bit on same units as Armia in Montreal. So Lehkonen-Granny/Hintz-Armia line could be a thing. That would mean that Kakko would have to be out of the active roster. I'm not a fan of Lehkonen because he always finds an excuse not to join WHC, but I like him as a player so I wouldn't mind having him in. We'd get more experience in the team over Kakko then. He might be more important locker room presence than Kakko and offensively no big difference on the current Kakko really when we look at the raw points.
More on your Granlund comments. Well on special teams we don't necessarily need him on a PP unit although he does that a lot on Nashville. We have plenty of good PP guys and play makers like Aho, Barkov and Rantanen on those units, even Donskoi and some others can do it good as well. Granlund can do both PP & PK like for example Nugent-Hopkins does in Edmonton. I don't see a big problem there. Granlund's natural role is center because he has done that the most lately. We all remember how good he was on the wing of Mikko Koivu, but it might take too long for him to get comfortable there, longer than having him settled at 4 center maybe, thus I favor the #4 center thing more.
Personally I still see Granlund as key to make the third line a offensive threat. Last year we did see Jalonen bringing old fashioned fourth line to WHC. I do think that even in balanced line rotation Granlund goes waste in fourth. And we have parts to build fourth line a true checking line.
Those are some good points and Jalonen indeed did do that in WHC, you are absolutely right. It is very interesting to see if Jalonen still uses that method of line building in a best on best tournament. For some reason in my mind I always viewed #3 & #4 lines being more equals.
