Drury v. Christensen

This will certainly become clearer through practice today, but we are very likely to see some lineup changes for Friday's home opener against the Leafs. There's a good chance Drury, who has been skating at practice again, will be back in the lineup. This doesn't complicate the roster situation very much: clearly either White or Kennedy (both of whom have cleared waivers already, you'll recall) will simply be sent down to Hartford (my money's still on White). Since neither Drury nor Prospal is on LTIR, they're both already counted against the cap, so this won't hurt our cap situation any (it will help a little).

As for the lineup, the question, of course, is whom he replaces. We likely get a free answer there, as Christensen seems to have suffered some sort of minor injury on Monday, when he skated to the locker room after what looked to me like a pretty innocuous (though uncalled) hook. At last report, it was some sort of leg injury, the extent of which is unknown.

This kinda works out, since Christensen would be my vote for removal anyway. The Frolov-Christensen-Gaborik line has not really clicked in the way that the second and third lines have, albeit throughout a small sample size of two games, and that's the line I'd want to change up right now. Taking Christensen out of the middle and giving Drury a chance there seems smart; I'd be just as happy putting Prospal there if he were the one returning, to see what happens.

So what it comes down to is this: there are basically two schools of thought here. One is right and one is wrong. Some people say that, because the Avery-Stepan-Fedotenko line has been so effective, and Stepan looks so fantastic there, he should be promoted to the first line to replace Christensen, leaving space for Drury between Fedo and Avery. This is the "the better you do, the higher up in the lines you go" theory, and it is wrong. It sounds like wisdom when you say "Stepan played really well, so he should be moved up." But what you're actually saying is "Avery, Stepan, and Fedotenko performed so well that I'm going to break them up immediately." Do not do this, this is wrong.

The other school of thought, the reasonable one, says that Avery-Stepan-Fedotenko and Dubinsky-Anisimov-Callahan both look fantastic, so they should be left alone looking fantastic. Meanwhile, Frolov-Christensen-Gaborik hasn't worked out just yet, and Christensen is injured, and Drury is back in, so maybe we should try Drury at that pivot. People from the dumb school will counter by saying "but Drury isn't very good, look how much we pay him." Those people are wrong - just like I wouldn't stick Drury on the first line just because of the name on his back, neither would I deny him that spot just because of it. We need to find chemistry there, and we need to leave alone the lines that are working. This is not hard.

Anyway, we'll see which one of those two things Torts actually does - it's very likely that Friday's lineup will contain Drury and not Christensen, so here's hoping he does the smart thing and leaves the second and third lines alone.