Quote:
Originally Posted by Da_Chief
If all 4 lines were outscoring other teams lines, we'd always be ahead and basically never lose.
There's a reason why they're -16:
-On road it is very likely they end up playing against top 2 lines here and there.
-At home time to time they will get caught against other teams top 2 lines.
-They're out there with our rookie D pair.
-Ratio of O zone start vs D zone starts.
I'd be curios to see if you can provide a breakdown of the rest of the leagues top 2 lines vs bottom 2 lines.
I'm not saying they're world beaters but this bottom 6 has been a pleasant surprise compared to years past. The fact that Janko, Ryan, Hathaway, Bennett are all key PKers, bodes well for top lines.
|
While you make some valid points, I'm not sure I can agree.
At the very least, I can tell you that Winnipeg's third line, with Lowry (3C) and Roslovic (4C) as a proxy, are exactly 0 at 5v5. For two teams expecting to contend for the cup, I think Winnipeg's bottom six could end up being the difference if we ran into them in a series.
I can also tell you that Jankowski's had insignificant effect by zone starts, at 52% ZSR he's still starting more often outside of the defensive zone.
And while Ryan, at 45% ZSR, is being used slightly "defensively", it's a misleading number because he has the lowest quality of competition on the entire team (naturally, Backlund takes on the tough assignments while Monahan and Jankowski split the rest of the matchups).
I can also tell you that Kylington has a +1 goal differential at 5v5 and while Valimaki doesn't, he's still only -4 which doesn't explain the stark dropoff to our bottom two forward lines.
Our bottom six could be improved. The four pieces that have been successful have been
- Bennett at 5v5 and on the PP
- Jankowski on the PK
- Ryan on the PP and PK
- Hathaway on the PK
and it's probably safe to assume Neal will continue to get looks until it's established that he's simply done as an NHLer, which is pretty scary but also a source for optimism if he finds his game.
But that still means Mangiapane/Dube/Jankowski/Ryan/Hathaway/Neal/Czarnik have all struggled 5v5. We should be exploring all options.