As per morning skate, the Rangers' lines today are:
Duclair - St. Louis - Nash
Kreider - Brassard - Stempniak
Hagelin - Hayes - Zuccarello
Malone - Moore - Glass
McDonagh / Girardi
Staal / Kostka
Moore / Klein
This is kind of halfway from what we were doing to what we should be doing. The first line is right. The second line keeps Kreider on Brassard's wing, which is great, but it leaves Stempniak up there even though Zuccarello is back. I'm trying to justify that, when Kreider-Brass-Zucc is the line we should be trying out. If it's one of those "the dude was out with an injury, and he's still a little sore, so play him lower in the lineup" things, then fuck that noise. It's the 4th game of the season, he should be resting until he's fully healed. If not, then why leave Stempniak up there? He's been good, but he's not going to be a better scorer than Zuccarello.
Hayes is in for Miller at center, which I wrote yesterday was what I wanted to see happen, so I can't complain about Hagelin - Hayes. And Malone is finally in on left wing on the 4th line, which is also great, so I can't complain about Malone - Moore. But - what's this - Malone didn't replace Glass at all! Glass shifted over to right wing! That's not even his natural side! When I said I wanted Hayes in for Miller, it was with Miller over at the wing. In this current lineup, either Miller or Fast would work just fine at that 4th line left wing spot (or 3rd line and drop Stempniak to 4th - either is fine). But we're so committed to Tanner Glass that we're willing to take him off his natural side just to sit Jesper Fast and JT Miller instead of him.
This tweet from Adam Herman basically says everything you need to know about this lineup decision.
On defense, AV brought in Kostka for Hunwick, which is totally reasonable and aligned with what I talked about yesterday. But he moved him up to be Staal's partner, putting Moore back with Klein. The only way I can justify this is that he wants Moore and Klein to get more time with each other and gel as a pair, so he's leaving the "fill-in guy" up with Staal until Boyle returns. But on a team where there's not a lot of justifiable difference among defensemen 5-8 (or 5-10), I don't know how much I buy that.
In conclusion, this is mostly okay modulo a couple of kind of weird decisions, except for the part where Tanner Glass makes the lineup at right wing over JT Miller and Jesper Fast, which is a stone cold crazy pants nonsense idea.
You started a paragraph a few posts ago with 'I don't want this space to become "shit on Tanner Glass" central, but', and I started to but ultimately didn't write a comment to the effect of "why not?". I'm glad you've abandoned your original plan over the past few days and succumbed to your instincts.
ReplyDeleteMan, you were definitely right. Shitting on Tanner Glass is a very correct move.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I feel like if I were writing a book, and I did that thing where the back cover was full of quotes other people said about me, to explain what kind of shit would be inside my book, I would put this comment on that back cover verbatim.