Joined: Apr. 2018
Posts: 155
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You may be right, but those aren't the lines I'd be penciling in for opening night. You and a couple hundred others will protest, but I will explain. Yeo will roll three lines, giving them equal minutes, and use a skilled but sheltered 4th line selectively. My starting lineup for Game 1 looks like this:
Schwartz--Schenn--Perron. Perron has the skill and speed to play with Schwartz and Schenn, both of whom will benefit having a talented pest who can finish.
Maroon--O'Reilly--Kyrou. A perfectly balanced trio. Maroon provides protection, O'Reilly provides defense, and Kyrou brings the speed. Sets young Kyrou up for success.
Steen--Bozak--Tarasenko. NO, this is NOT a "3rd line". This is merely one of the Blues' many "2nd lines", and it's also well-balanced.
Fabbri--Thomas--Soshnikov. Plays sheltered minutes. Fabbri gets eased back into the game. Thomas gets to play his natural position with talented wingers. Soshnikov easily beats out Jaskin for the last RW slot, and stays there as long as he stays healthy.
Thorburn and Nolan both get called up on more than one occasion, but neither will dress for the Blues in a regular season game all year.
Barbashev/Jaskin are kept as extras. Jaskin sulks and gets dealt, with Gunnarsson, before Thanksgiving.
Edmundson is first pairing with Petro.
J-Bo gets benched by Christmas and reluctantly waives his NMC to be dealt to an injury riddled Eastern Conference team.
Dunn reclaims 2nd pairing, and Mikkola gets called up to play with Bortuzzo--and they all thrive.
Edmundson--Petro
J-Bo--Parayko
Dunn--Bortuzzo
Gunnarsson
This is all the old Gypsy woman would tell me.