Avery as a Ranger

So, with apologies to John Tortorella's master plan, here are the lines he seems to mostly like to start out using, for now, basically:

Naslund - Gomez - Zherdev
Dubinsky - Drury - Callahan
Dawes - Korpikoski - Prucha
Sjostrom - Betts - Orr

The funny thing about Sean Avery is that he actually has to go on one of these lines, somewhere. Let's start with the simple solution: Avery, being a left wing, replaces a left wing. It goes without saying (despite my saying it) that he doesn't replace Naslund or Dubinsky: Torts is a very "these are my top 6 guys" kind of guy. The way Naslund's been playing since the coaching change, why not? And obviously Torts wants Dubi in the top 6 enough to take him off of center and put him on wing - I'm not thinking Avery's gonna change that. He could stick him on the 4th line instead of Sjostrom, but he tried that a game ago with Voros and found that he missed Sjostrom a lot. Again, with good reason - Sjos has become hells of solid. He's where he needs to be, backchecking when he's supposed to and (GASP!) forechecking, even on the PK. That leaves Dawes. I like the Korpikoski line so far, but if Torts is gonna stick Avery in for one left wing, this is the only reasonable place to put him. It'll allow Avery to show his skill and his spunk, while still under the somewhat diminished ice time Torts tends to give his third line. He'd be out of place on any of the other 3.

And come on, how much do you love an Avery-Korpikoski-Prucha line? Answer: a lot. You love it a whole fucking lot.

Take that, Adult Content Filter.

OK, now that I'm back from my 10-minute hiatus spent fantasizing about an Avery-Korpikoski-Prucha line, let's move on to rearrangements. What if Torts decides to do something a little bit more misaligning? Really, the team is his oyster. I still don't think there's any reason to put Sean on the 4th line, and I doubt he'd ever stick him on the first. Really, outside of replacing Dawes, which we (for small values of "we," meaning "I") discussed, there are only 3 other viable forwards Avery could knock out of their spots: Callahan, Korpikoski, and Prucha. If he knocks out Callahan, I think Callahan will stay in the lineup and get sent to the 3rd line, knocking out one of the other 3rd-liners. So the question is: what does the 3rd line look like? Dawes-Korpikoski-Callahan is a likely option, but I can't imagine Torts turning around and benching my boy after how well he's been playing and all the shit Renney used to give him. If that happens, as my dad said, I might have to resort to starting a blog. If Korpikoski has to stay at center, there's always Prucha-Korpikoski-Callahan, as Torts has shown he sometimes takes people out of position, but that seems weird. If ANYTHING, I think that he will finally resort to Dubi being a center, make the second line Avery-Drury-Callahan, and the third line Dawes-Dubinsky-Prucha, sitting Korpikoski. Really, I think these are the only two viable options.

To sum up, I think it likely that the first and fourth lines will be left alone, and the second and third lines will either be:
Avery - Drury - Callahan
Dawes - Dubinsky - Prucha
(sit Korpikoski)
or, more likely:
Dubinsky - Drury - Callahan
Avery - Korpikoski - Prucha
(sit Dawes)

Is this good? Yeah, I think so. I like Dawes and Korpikoski, but I think Avery has the potential to bring a little more scoring and a little more fire. Regardless, it's gonna be fun...