Not enough talk about how big a pain in the ass the Bouma-Backlund-Hathaway line could be to play against. Hathaway and Bouma are unrelenting on the forecheck and Backlund is a great two centre. I think that has all the components of a great checking line.
I actually like the balance with these lines a lot better than the previous games. Gaudreau-Bennett-Frolik has a nice blend of skill, skating, tenacity, youth and experience. Ferland-Monahan-Colborne has a lot of big bodies and theoretically could work the cycle quite well. I think they hope Ferland's physicality rubs off on Monahan and Colborne. I'd like to see Ferland and Monahan get some chemistry together, they could be a good duo.
We now have two scoring, 1 checking line and 1 energy line. Better than 1 scoring line, two checking lines and an energy line. When we're a contender we may have 3 scoring lines and 1 checking line.
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