Friday, December 7, 2007

Dressing 7 defensemen

With the return of Sergei Gonchar from his groin injury, Michel Therrien's employing an altered lineup. Instead playing the regular 12 forwards/6 defenseman, he's going with 11 forwards and 7 defensemen.

I can understand not scratching Darryl Sydor; a veteran who hasn't been bad, but not that great of late either. And of course you cannot scratch a player like Kris Letang, he's obviously proving himself as a guy you have to play.

The result though, is players get less icetime. Sydor has about 25 minutes of icetime....For both games combined. Brooks Orpik has been getting about 12 minutes a night too.

I don't run the show, but I would rotate scratching Sydor and Rob Scuderi until injury/performance dictated otherwise. Sure, Scuderi's been great in his role and a terrific surprise, but he's a bland 5/6 defenseman that isn't going to create much one way or another.

Another result of this strategy is that Erik Christensen and Jarrko Ruutu have been scratches.

Night off for the boys tonight before a final game in Western Canada with arguably the toughest opponent of the trip: Roberto Luongo and the Canucks....Haven't heard anything about the severity about Marc-Andre Fleury's ankle, but hopefully it's not a long-term injury. Seemed kind of minor.

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