View Single Post
Old 01-18-2020, 07:52 AM   #2
Monahammer
In the Sin Bin
 
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Alberta
Exp:
Icon45

Quote:
Originally Posted by tvp2003 View Post
Thought this might be a good discussion point. In the Toffoli thread there is the the thought that if we can acquire a top six RW, we can put that player with Monahan and Gaudreau and “push Backlund down to 3C”. But would Backlund really be our third best center right now?

This year he has 6G and 15A for 21 points. He’s played the majority of the season on a line with Tkachuk or Gaudreau. He’s no longer in our top two PK rotation.

Meanwhile, Ryan has 9G and 16A for 26 points in the same amount of games. He’s been paired with Lucic for a big chunk of the season. Plays PK minutes.

Last year it was comical how Hathaway-Ryan-Mangiapane would be called our 4th line even though they were miles ahead of Bennett-Jankowski-Neal, especially down the stretch. That’s not to say any of these labels mean anything once the puck is dropped, but if Backlund goes back to C, do you play him with someone like Dube or Mangiapane? Or let him start with the Rieders and Rinaldos of the world (ie along with Bennett)?

Backlund is obviously having an off year (at least offensively) — his shooting percentage is only 6.2 which is well off his usually performance (pretty consistently between 9 and 11). Hopefully the puck starts going in for him.

Meanwhile, I think most fans are very happy with Ryan right now, and deservedly so. Barring a trade, maybe you swap Dube with Backlund for a few games? Ryan seems to have a knack for making players around him better...
I would love to see ryan with Monahan-gaudreau for a game, but the pairing of backlund-Ryan with ryan mostly playing centre but the two sharing duties would be excellent imo. Put dube on the other wing and I think it would go really well.
Monahammer is offline   Reply With Quote