Quote:
Originally Posted by GioforPM
Frankly, I don't know of many headscratching decisions he's made for the lineup. I know I thought the Backlund wing experiment was one that made some sense, if Lindholm was coming off the line, since they have some similar attributes. This decision might be one, though perhaps he feels Monahan, as mainly a shooter, is better suited for wing of Ryan moves up.
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I wonder why he never really tried Backlund in the centre on that line then, if the idea would be to use Monahan as a shooting winger. In the first few days Backlund was actually a nice presence on that line as made some good zone entries to present an alternative to Johnny carrying the puck 100% of the time, but I seemed to see that less as time went on, and he had zero finishing ability unlike Lindholm.
I like the idea of trying Ryan with Gaudreau/Monahan though as he'd shown some chemistry with Gaudreau in the past and I think they could benefit from a RH shot. I suppose that Ward doesn't want to run Lindholm/Monahan/Backlund/Ryan down the centre because that will mean one of the will be getting relatively reduced minutes centering the fourth line, which might not be ideal.