That’s the thing. If Rooney (already happened) and Lucic and one of Lewis/Ritchie are benched then that fourth line is actually playable again. Right now we have an awful fourth line that literally can’t be played. Sutter clearly sees this from their recent ice time. But say the fourth line was Dube/Coleman/Lewis? That is probably a decent looking line. You can then go back to four lines and happily give them 10 minutes a game.
I don’t think we have the clicking top talent to lean on a top line but with a couple things they could inject some skill into the top nine (I’d say one new player on line 2 and one with Backlund) and have a good fourth line again, maybe even one of the better fourth lines in the league. Which maybe isn’t something to be that excited about but we know Sutter loves his third/fourth lines and having both be good would be nice.
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