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Habs Lines 2011-12


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I like your top 6 guys and giving Eller and Pleks big minutes. Once Gomez is back in game shape though, I wouldn't mind seeing what he can bring on the 3rd line wing with DD and Moen (or even centering DD and Moen) and dropping Darche down to the 4th line which Noke centers.

The 1st two lines are great. The problem is that you then have DD and Gomez, both set-up men without any scoring skills themselves, floating around with 4 wingers who themselves can't score. It seems like a waste of those two guys and it puts a lot of burden on the top two lines to be on every game. I'd rather see the scoring spread out over 3 lines personally and give Gomez and DD each at least one guy who can pot goals. To me, Gomez is the guy who moves to the wing...

My bottom six is based on the following assumption: Pierre is not finished with trades - but I presume that the players mentioned in my top 6 (even AK) will be around past deadline. If thats the case, then lets play them a lot now & decide if that really is our best course of action (Ie: if its worth resigning AK, which my gut tells me they will).

Either way, as Gomez rounds into game shape, I would probably turn the third line into something like Gomez-DD-Moen (although I expect Moen to be dealt).

I fully expect a few other guys to go before the deadline. Its unlikely that Gomez will be one of them (we can hope) but it is posisble that Desharnais would (assuming we can get a young, bigger talent in return).

Of course this is all assuming that we are going into a mini-rebuild mode, which I think is not certain right now.

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Wth the addition of bourque the return of Gomez, this would be my lineup:

Pacioretty Plekanec Cole

Bourque Eller Kostitsyn

Darche Desharnais Moen

Noke Gomez Weber

Cunneyworth clearly wants to play Eller and Plekanec big minutes, so forget the idea of the true "checking line" and instead stack your top two lines. Desharnais & Gomez get the bottom 2 lines to work with, but both (DD especially) also is to expect PP time.

I might swap around those top 4 wingers but I would keep Eller and Pleks as my big minute centres going forward.

Completely healthy offensive roster besides Gio? I'd have to take this route :

Bourque Gomez Cole

Pacioretty Plekanec Kostitsyn

Eller Desharnais White

Moen Nokelainen Weber

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Max Pacioretty - Scott Gomez - Erik Cole (Scoring, big wingers with the enigmatic Gomez).

Rene Bourque - Lars Eller - Andrei Kostitsyn (Secondary scoring, Eller/Kostitsyn already "okay").

Travis Moen - Tomas Plekanec - Petteri Nokelainen (Checking line, two centers, rugged left winger).

Mathieu Darche - David Desharnais - Mike Blunden (Limited minutes, two bigger wingers with the small Desharnais).

Tomas Kaberle - Josh Gorges (Best outlet passer with our "best" stay at home D).

Alexei Emelin - P.K. Subban (The young, physical pairing, probably responsible for a ton of mistakes).

Chris Campoli - Raphael Diaz (Limited minutes, not really too confident with this pairing).

POWERPLAY UNIT #1.

Max Pacioretty - Scott Gomez - Erik Cole

Tomas Kaberle - P.K. Subban

POWERPLAY UNIT #2

Lars Eller - Tomas Plekanec - Rene Bourque

Raphael Diaz - Andrei Kostitsyn :lol:

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AGAINST THE RAGS:

Pacman-Gomer-Cole

Bourque-Pleks-DD

AK-Eller-Moen

Noke-Blunden/Darche

Blunden/Darche

Kaberle-Gorges

Gill-Subban

Emelin/Campoli-Diaz (dress 7 D)

EVERYONE HEALTHY (except Gio):

Pacman-Gomer-Cole

Bourque-Pleks-DD

AK-Eller-Moen

White-Noke-Darche/Blunden

Blunden/Darche

Markov-Subban

Kaberle-Gorges

Emelin-Diaz

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When Gomez is ready, season is over might as well and let the rookies play.

Andrei Kostitsyn - Tomas Plekanec - Max Pacioretty :Get andrei some trading value by giving lots of minutes with 2 skilled players.

David Desharnais - Lars Eller - Erik Cole :2 big, physical and skilled players to complement David.

Travis Moen - Scott Gomez - Rene Bourque : 2 big physical wingers

Andrew Conboy - Petteri Nokelainen - Mike Blunden :Big grinder line

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With the addition of Bourque and the subtraction of Cammalleri, it's actually more viable now for us to have Plekanec centering a Datsyuk-type checking line that can go power-on-power against top lines but has the skill to score. So:

Eller-Plekanec-Kostitsyn

Bourque-Gomez-Cole

Pacioretty-Desharnais-Moen

Palushaj-Nokelainen-Darche/Blunden

We may not have elite scoring talent, but our first three lines all flank our smaller centers with bigger, stronger wingers.

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I don't want Gomez at the top-2 lines. He has to earn the privilege. So my lines from now on would be:

Kostitsyn-Eller-Cole

Moen-Plekanec-Bourque

Pacioretty-Desharnais-Gomez

Darche-Nokaleinen-Blunden

Subban-Gorges

Emelin-Diaz/Weber

Gill/Campoli-Kaberle

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I don't want Gomez at the top-2 lines. He has to earn the privilege. So my lines from now on would be:

Kostitsyn-Eller-Cole

Moen-Plekanec-Bourque

Pacioretty-Desharnais-Gomez

Darche-Nokaleinen-Blunden

Subban-Gorges

Emelin-Diaz/Weber

Gill/Campoli-Kaberle

I like this.

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I'm not going to post any new lines for now, I think there are a good number of suggestions going around. But what i will say is that I hope the Habs have a plan for how to use their players, and I'll give an example. Let's take Desharnais. No matter how you shake it, I think he needs to be part of the top 9 and needs to be playing with at least one guy with size and one guy who can score (can be the same player). But it serves us no purpose to play him on the 4th line with guys like Darche and Blunden or Nokelainen and Weber, for example.

This team is not going to win a Cup this year, nor are we likely to make the playoffs, and as such, this year should be devoted to giving young guys experience and assessing players in different roles. If the plan is for DD to be a key part of the offence going forward, then you need to take advantage of his skill, which is as a set-up man. He's not being used as an energy guy nor as a defensive specialist, so his role on a 4th line is pretty minimal. Whereas guys like Blunden, Darche, and White are great to have on the 4th line, certain players like DD, Palushaj, or Gomez just have no role there. They may be your spare parts when constructing lines, but it's not doing either the player nor the team any good. And if DD is not part of your plans going forward next year, you still want to have him on an offensive line because you want to make his stats look as good as possible to showcase him for a trade. Atthe end of the year, another team may look at DD and say, "hey, there's a skill player with 55 points who's a plus player." A squad with some big wingers might be willing to take him on and slap him in an offensive role where he can flourish, and DD's still a young guy with a low cap hit, so I can see how he might be attractive if he has good numbers at the end of the year. In a lot of ways, teams might see him as being able to have success as a small, skill center like Mike Ribeiro or Mikhael Grabovski, and that could garnish us a favorable return. It' easy to brush DD onto the 4th line because you like Eller better, but I think we still need to find spots for both guys in the top 9 and maximize DD's output so as to make him more attractive to trade (if the decision is to get bigger and move him on).

In Gomez's case, it's a similar situation. The team's best option is to play him this year, not sit him on the 4th line. If he flourishes, then great; he can only help his linemates and make himself look better. If he stinks, well then you know he's done and you bury him in the minors. But again, playing him 10 minutes a game on the 4th line is going to do nothing for his value, and he's another guy who probably doesn't figure into the long-term plans but who my be moveable in the off-season if we can get him going for the second half of the year. So really, all I'm saying is that I think the Habs lines for the remainder of the season should be constructed with thought towards not only developing players we want to keep but also maximizing the return we hope to get on players whose futures here are less certain. With this season already just about lost, it will serve us better in the long run to give every chance to guys like Gomez, DD, Campoli, Kaberle, Weber, Diaz, Moen, and AK46 to succeed.

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Guest habs1952

Gomez on the wing i think better suits him anyway

I can envision Gomez using his speed on the wing to the same effect as Cole. He may not score a ton of goals but there could be plenty of rebounds to cash in for someone crashing the net.

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Please, Randy, if you do nothing else for the remainder of the year, get Blunden off Plekanec's line and play Gomez as a damn center (sit Nokelainen).

Or better yet, don't. Because we are looking like a mighty fine lottery team, have been since you took over. ;)

Blunden will be out of the Pleks line. I'm 95% sure, since Bourque will play. And why play Gomez on the 4th line when he won't do anything there? Also, if Gomez starts doing good in the second half of the season, then we might have a chance to trade him in the off-season.

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Bourque-Plekanec-Cole

Pacioretty-Gomez-Kostitsyn

Moen-Eller-DD

Darche-Nokelainen-Blunden

That's what I'd like to see. Plekanec finally gets two big wingers, Gomez gets paired with people who can score, DD gets two linemates with size, and Noke centers a proper fourth line.

Switch Cole and AK and I like those lines.

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Pacioretty DD Cole

Bourque Plekanec Kostitsyn

Gomez Eller Moen

Darche Noke Blunden

Gorges Subban

Emelin Diaz

Gill Kaberle

Why not have our best 6 offensive players in our top 6? Novel, I know.

Eller can stay at center.

I don't mind the 7 defenceman thing but I think it's nice to have a Righty center available, it could go either way to me.

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Pacioretty DD Cole

Bourque Plekanec Kostitsyn

Gomez Eller Moen

Darche Noke Blunden

Gorges Subban

Emelin Diaz

Gill Kaberle

Why not have our best 6 offensive players in our top 6? Novel, I know.

Eller can stay at center.

I don't mind the 7 defenceman thing but I think it's nice to have a Righty center available, it could go either way to me.

This please. I'd experiment a bit on which of Gomez and Eller plays center but these are the lines I want. I particularly hope that top 6 is what we see.

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