Quote:
Originally Posted by Monahammer
I'll play ball. You're throwing out a lot of bologna with no substance.
Line 1: Tkachuk-Lindholm-Johnny I agree, appears to be a very solid 1 line.
Line 2: Mangiapane-Monahan-Coleman This is where you lose me. You could argue Monahan is a question mark but statistically you're talking about a guy who is essentially guaranteed to put up 20g and 50 pt. Mangiapane has a lot of fans around here who would say he's much more than a ? and Coleman also has a good record of consistency. So the injury to Monahan should be the only real ?
Line 3: Lucic-Backlund-Dube I know you're not a lucic fan, but then you could replace him with Pitlick and easily invalidate your argument. This has the makings statistically of a good third line.
Line 4: Lewis-Richardson-Pitlick Again, statistically this is a group of guys that's never really been beaten up on the scoreboard through their career. Could happen but I don't think you're going in desperately hoping to not get clowned (as opposed to running a line of Simon-Ryan-Nordstrom as a comparison)
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Yeah, that actually looks quite solid to me. Even with questions about his health, Monahan is still at worst a very good second-line producer, and having bona-fide top-six player like Backlund centring the third line is an amazing option.
If the Flames are going to struggle this year, it will be on the blue line, and in particular with generating offense from the backend. But I don't see any issues with the forward depth that several posters are predicting, and I believe that Sutter is going to coach an airtight defensive system. It seems like a good strategy fro this group that has solid forward depth, but which is short on high-end talent, and with questions on the blue line.