[JayP]

Originally Posted by blankall

Really disagree with the article as it relates to the current Flames. The Flames have a huge amount of scoring depth through the first three lines now. They need to be taking away ice time from the fourth line and givign it to the top two lines and to younger players who need the time to develop. Having a couple of tough guys on the fourth line is not going to hurt the Flames.

The Flames now have Iginla, Tanguay, Cammalleri, Stajan, Stempniak, Glencross, Hudler, and Cervenka as legitimate scoring threats. They need to find ice time for Horak, Baertschi, Backlund, etc... The traditional 1-2-3-4 line combo doesn't really apply here. They need to find time for potentially 3 scoring lines. The 4th line should be getting very minimal time. Should be something along the lines of 20+ minutes, 18+ minutes, and 15-17 minutes for the top three lines respectively, and 3-7 minutes for the 4th.

What team doesn't have scoring "threats" down the line-up like that? We have decent depth, but we're by no means unusual in having players with some offensive skill on the 3rd line.