Logical Progression wrote:
Hang on a minute regarding the lines. Yesterday at practice they had:
Sedin / Sedin / Sutter (???)
Isn't Sutter a Defensive Third line Centre? They also had Hutton paired with Tanev, Edler with Sbisa and Weber with Bartkowski. That probably won't stick.
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If it were me, I would start the season like this:
Sedin / Sedin / Vrbata
Horvat / Virtanen / Baertschi
Burrows /Sutter / Hansen
Prust / McCann / Dorsett
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Edler / Tanev
Hamhuis / Weber
Hutton / Sbisa
(Bart)
There seems to be this huge reluctance to put Vrbata with the twins which I just don't understand. Maybe it was his poor playoff performance last year.
Actually, that makes perfect sense. Benning may not have a clue, but Desjardins does.
I obviously haven't seen a lot of Sutter, but by all accounts his rep as a defensively responsible forward is pure hogwash. Like Tyler Bozak, he's a guy who came into the league who was supposed to do a lot of things well, and ended up not doing much of anything well. Also like Bozak, he seems quite proficient at scoring under special circumstances. Bozak is damn near automatic on the break, and Sutter is damn near automatic when streaking down the right side.
So in essence you have a fairly gritty, one-dimensional player who sucks defensively, but can reliably put it in the net when playing the right side and is set up properly. That seems just about perfect for the twins, who have kinda made a career out of taking marginal one-dimensional players and turning them into scorers.
All due respect, the only thing a Burrows-Sutter-Hansen line would rack up is penalty minutes. Horvat's probably the team's best hope at present for a checking center. I don't really know anything about Virtanen.