Wotherspoon in the lineup it will benefit the gaudreau line especially I think. I've noticed that, especially on the road, gaudreau's line tends to be on the ice with the engelland-Smid pairing. Not sure if this is due to matchups from Hartley or from the other teams' coaches. Either way, Smid and Engelland struggle with a composed breakout to leave the zone... Rarely make a solid, playmaking first pass out of the zone. Instead, it's usually a rim around the boards or a chip off the glass which lead to a loss of possession. With gaudreau's line those are wasted offensive minutes when they can't move up the ice with speed and are instead hemmed in their own zone.
A guy like Wotherspoon has the composure and skill to add some smart plays out of the zone to the 3rd pairing. It might take a few games for him to get to that point but we all saw that ability last season and he's shown it at the AHL level this year as well.
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