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Originally Posted by Bingo
You see Gaudreau and Monahan as consistent "on my back boys" number one line candidates?
They've disappeared for two straight playoff seasons.
They are some of the most sheltered players on the team.
You can reject my notion, but I'm going to reject your rejection.
Top line core players don't need to be sheltered, and tend to show up in the biggest games. I'm not slagging the duo, they're excellent hockey players, but they've become second line and powerplay guys more than play driving complete first line "contending team" forwards.
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I see Gaudreau+Monahan as roughly equivalent to a "Kane" or "Malkin" line on their respective teams. Probably not your "top" line (Which would have been Saad-Toews-Hossa or x-Crosby-x) but certainly an important line.
I've always seen "3M" as our top line to be honest, especially the last couple of years with Mangiapane in place of Frolik. Backlund had a rough series in 2019 but I felt the bigger issue that year was Peters getting outcoached. Last year, Tkachuk was injured, and Ward bizarrely thought the solution was to put Reider on that line, which was a massive failure. I'd even rather have seen Lucic or Jankowski line up on Backs' LW, as Reider and Mangiapane both on the same line was a huge mismatch given our "along the walls" breakout strategy.
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They've disappeared for two straight playoff seasons.
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I think both times their RW Lindholm disappeared with them. They produced when in the playoffs when Bennett was up on the line. I also look back to the 2017 playoffs and thought that line with Ferland had a strong series despite the lack of production - they just ran into insanely good goaltending.