Quote:
Originally Posted by gvitaly
I think Mangiapane was scoring alright in a 4th line role before Backlund. In addition his line was pushing play and had amazing advanced stats over the last two seasons. Also, if I am not mistaken most of Mangiapane's offense came at 5 on 5 which was a huge bonus for the team. I think he can be even more of a factor with an increased roll and more PP time.
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Mangiapane was playing well on a line with Ryan and Lucic before he was promoted to 3M when Frolik was failing.
Ryan kind of lost his line after that and never found a new one and seems like the odd man out now.
But if they do plan to play cheap youngsters on the 4th line, there’s no better vet than Ryan to put them with.
I’d even consider moving Ryan up with Monahan and Gaudreau and moving Lindholm to centre Tkachuk and have Backlund and Mangiapane form their own line. This would really spread out the scoring and mitigate any weaknesses in the 11th and 12th forwards.