Quote:
Originally Posted by Bingo
Didn't we talk about this 8 weeks ago?
Pro hockey has about 46 minutes of five on five hockey. Over the past few weeks we've had many criticize Sutter (and I get this argument) for making the disparity between ice time too tight.
Now you want the fourth line to eat up another 5 minutes?
This isn't about who's the best fourth liner, it's about developing kids in roles where they can play and not sit on the fourth line.
If you call up a solid AHL line of great young talent and take away ice time from your top players you hurt your team. If you call up a solid AHL line of great young talent and stifle them with 7 minutes a night you kill their development.
This isn't a Calgary thing, it's roster construction.
Get an injury and then a guy like Pelletier has to play top nine minutes. He succeeds, and you make room for him.
But you can't fit a 12 minute fourth line into the NHL roster balance, and it's not about mindlessly loving plugs or veteran players.
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Our 4th line gets that 10-12 minutes, if you are going to be stubborn and roll 4 lines when it doesn't work, I would rather have talented players getting those minutes. Rolling out junk like Lucic, Rooney, Ritchie and Lewis doesn't help the team or create any offence. I don't actually mind Lewis, but the rest shouldn't be playing.