Chemistry Class: Will Carolina's New Lines Get The Job Done?

except we play at Washington Saturday night and not NJ.

you do terrific work!

I hate that 2nd line. Do not like it AT ALL.

Sad and disappointing.

Does not belong anywhere near an NHL 2nd line.

But I for the life of me can find no reason in heck for Rosie to be any higher than the third line…

Last year he was a complete drag on the top lines, heavily negative and failed to score (assists or goals) at even a top nine pace. This pre-season, he’s been injured twice, contributed nothing, and seemed to not get the new break out plan because he more than anyone else on the team just kept flipping the puck out of our zone to center ice. Each time resulting in a turnover and another entry back into our own zone….

JR said Dalpe would be good with Ruu and Skinner…. In preseason Mo said Dalpe looked good with Staal. He at least scored and generated chances for others. LaRose? not so much.

But Mo goes back to his standard penchants and comfort level: play the vets over prospects. Thought we learned from the LaRose experiments last year, but I guess not. If Mo thinks LaRose is a top six forward it’s no wonder he’s never been good a creating any…

But, to the question at hand? We’ll see. Ruuut never worked well with Staal before, Staal is significantly faster than Skinner and Ruu, so no complement there.
I yi yi…

I’ll hope for the best….

The best solution for slow developing chemistry is to mix up the lines again?

apparently poni didnt pan out on the top line?
cause skinner and rutuu seemed tailor made for second line work together.
i have to say i really dont like these lines either

.

Are we there yet? Are we there yet?

I may be disappointed again in how Mo can’t figure out lines, kills chemistry, and plays his favorites over others without any apparent rationale. But I can’t wait for the season to start
Win, lose, JUST PLAY!!!

Are we there yet????

I think my new tagline may be “who the hell knows?”

I got… nothin.

I think we now know why Mo has permanent job security:

Separated at birth, or did someone make it out of the jungle?

I’m sad for McBain and even sadder for Dalpe….there is no reason, absolutely no reason that Dalpe isn’t on the 2nd line at least and Stewart isn’t on the 3rd line. Quite frankly, I’m just confused….let the games begin so that things can get shaken up yet again.

All I can say is, In Mo I trust. Wait, no I don’t! What the hell are these lines? This is horsesh*t! Dalpe doesn’t belong on the 4th, LaRose & Dwyer only belong on the 4th, and I’m not a fan of Staal & Skinner together except on the PP. But as CaniacSteve always says, “I’m just a fan, what do I know?”

So during the preseason we had trouble scoring? Our first line here had 0 goals in the preseason. This 2nd line had 1 goal between them. The 3rd line had 3 goals (maybe 4, I can’t remember if Dwyer scored). And the 4th line had 3 goals with everyone scoring a goal. I guess the preseason really doesn’t mean too much.

Corvo with a PP assist tonight, but B’s lose.

Mo, for some oddball reason, decides to roll lines and goves the 4th line more ice…maybe this works. I agree that Larose is NOT the heart of this team from a competitive and production standpoint and should not be elevated beyond the third line. I am dissapointed that Stewart is not regarded or has not performed to a level that places him above the 4th line. I am super dissapointed to see Dalpe on the 4th. My gosh…he’s better off in Charlotte than on that bench bound line. Dwyer, however, always seems to be one of the fastet guys on the ice and seems to have an scoring ability. Maybe he is Larose a few years ago,but he seems to finish better than Rosie ever did. Safe to say this really is a chemistry experiment that is destined not to last for long. On Mo lasting past December…let’s hope he does so that we have a chance for the playoffs. If he must go at all, I would hope it would be within the first 10 to 12 games so we have a chance to rebound. Let’s hope for immedite success for all, regardless of their contract future…this includes the softly booed one. He is still soflty booed at every introduction & never by myself.

I think I would have rather seen 12 and 53 split up. If you are going to have Larose on the 2nd line I’d rather it be with Skinner and Ruutu and than Staal, Juice, and Tlusty on the other line.

If the fourth line gets like 8 minutes T.O.I. in tonight’s game, then yeah, the line pairings are questionable at best. But if they roll 12 minutes or more on the fourth, then it’s more of a difficult matchup situation for the opposition, and it kinda/sorta makes sense.

Look, based on the past few years, IMHO there is no way LaRose is a top 6 player. That said, we really don’t need him as a fourth liner any more since we have so much talent in Charlotte chomping at the bit to get up here. There really is no place for him anywhere, UNLESS he has a breakout season and starts lighting the lamp AND playing well defensively (play the MAN, not the PUCK rosie) to cut down on his +/-. By putting him with some more skilled players paired up against another team’s studs, it’s kinda/sorta like a last gasp “show us what you can do” type of situation, perhaps.

I dunno…grasping at straws here…hoping for the best…GO CANES!!!

Maurice, fortunately in this instance, never keeps lines together for extended periods. Never is a powerful word, of course; however, I think it is accurate in this context. I would not be surprised if these lines are re-shuffled after one complete round of shifts.

  I do not like green eggs and ham; I do not like these lines, Sam I am to quote Dr. Suess. I do like the team as rebuilt, and other than the lines as presently constituted there are almost no line combinations that look dubious. As long as Dwyer and LaRose are not played beyond the third line any other variation should work fine.

Very excited to see real hockey that counts. I wish the lines were a little better, but didn’t we all kind of expect this from Mo? The day he can coach himself out of a paperbag is the day this organization takes a true step forward.

I like the D Pairings at least…….

Now we have a player questioning the lines:

Jokinen began training camp on the wing but was shifted to center for the Canes’ final preseason game. He joked that center was his “least favorite position” and that he had expressed that to Maurice, smiling and adding, “I don’t know if my English is bad or what’s going on.”

So we have a player who’s produced 50 points + his last two seasons and scored 30 goals from the wing and we’re gonna put him in his least favorite position and saddle him with last years Line Curse (LaRose) and hope he gets it done…

Really disappointed in the line combinations. I have no issues with the defensive pairings. I think they provide a good balance. Only apprehensive over Gleason being with Pitkanen because they haven’t worked well together in the past and Gleason plays better on the strong side.

My issue with the lines are across the board. You bring in two guys who you preach are going to be used to play with Staal and attempt to replace Cole’s production. Don’t get me wrong there are 82 games in a season and they still can, but why in the world are you playing one of them on our defensive line and the other on our fourth line.

Yet two guys that would not be above another teams 4th line in this league, playing 2nd and 3rd line minutes. LaRose and Dwyer should be on the 4th line. To top it all off we have our best prospect rotting away on the 4th line. How is he going to show anything if he gets 10 minutes a game max and is playing with players that are not expected to score tons. Yes Dalpe will have Stewart and I know Brent had an elustrious scoring career in juniors but that doesn’t sit well with me.

LInes shoul d be:
Poni Staal Dalpe
Skinner Ruutu Jokinen
Stewart Sutter Tlusty
Dwyer Brent LaRose

You get the balance across the board. I know everyone has already posted very similar lines, but its frustrating. I also feel bad for McBain because he hasn’t played badly, just not phenomenally

that second line looks like garbage.

You talk about needing to be bigger and you bury your two biggest bodied forwards in the bottom 6. I just don’t get it. BUt like others have said, Mo WILL shuffle these combos, so we may only see a shirt or two a piece for these lines.

Early prediction for tonights game, TB 3-1 (third goal being an EN) and Stamkos grabs a 3 point night out of us.

On sheer optimism alone, I came up with the thought that maybe Mo has Dalpe on the 4th line to help with opening night jitters, it being his first opening night in the NHL, so he’s not overwhelmed or amped up too much. I don’t believe this is the case, but I’ll at least try optimism for opening night coaching SNAFU.

Quick question,

Does this count against Murphy’s 9 games if he is a scratch? I

Maybe he plans to skate the top line 30 minutes a night and give everybody else ten minutes even?

What this could result in is a slightly different look at defense each night, at least for the first couple of weeks in the season. When asked if there would be a set rotation or if it would be based on who plays well, Maurice said it would be a "bit of both."

"Clearly, we have an opportunity to improve our defense if we have a guy that’s not playing well," he said. "Golf analogy – we don’t want to [change] our grip on every hole, but at the same time, there has to be some pressure to perform. The players that are here that have experience are here in the NHL because they’ve proven they can play, but they need to continue to do it. And we have young players that are going to play."

The forward lines as reconstituted by Maurice are not good. They haven’t worked before, they did not work last night, and they will not work in the future. The fact that Dalpe in three pre-season games didn’t score 20 goals is irrelevant. The Hurricanes need to put Skinner/Ruutu/Jokinen back as a line. That line works well. It isn’t important that on paper the line might not be the best in the NHL. When the two Finns and Skinner hit the ice, magic happens.

  LaRose cannot play in the top six without killing the offense for whichever line he is on. He is marginal on the third line; but do not expect any third line with LaRose to add much additional scoring on a consistent basis. He is fine on the fourth line and is fine killing penalties. The coaches can cite LaRose’s success 8 years ago in the AHL as evidence he is a scorer; but LaRose is not a top six player on a successful NHL team.

  Dwyer is not a top nine player; but is essentially LaRose II. He does fine on the fourth line and killing penalties. Maurice tried last season to prove he was right and that LaRose was a top six forward. That experiment failed. The good news is that Maurice is strong-willed and is not likely to change his approach until things are desperate. That is good in the long run because the Hurricanes need to add elite talent. Elite talent is available three ways: (1) sign UFAs and pay a king’s ransom for it or mortgage the future and that isn’t happening with the Hurricanes; (2) get lucky and have the rest of the NHL miss a talent, that happened I think with Dalpe, Murphy, and Rask; or (3) be horrible as a team and load up on elite talent in strong drafts, which is what Pittsburgh accomplished, and Florida and Winnipeg seem to have done. The Hurricanes now are headed down a path of a frustrating season, but one which yields the elite talent in the draft the Hurricanes desperately need to be successful in the short and long term. In my view, it is how Maurice is wired. He has his views of how he wants to organize and play his team. That is how he sees it and that for good or bad is how it will be. In this case, it looks like an almost certain path out of the NHL; but he is convinced he’s right.

   For me, it’s a simple test. Look at the TOI, and the lines. The less time Dalpe, Ponikarovksy, and Stewart spend on the ice in the top nine, and the more time LaRose and Dwyer spend on top nine, the great the likelihood the Hurricanes score two or fewer goals and loss badly.

This season LaRose has zilch points, either goals or assists, and Dwyer has nada points as well. In 2002-2003, with Plymouth in the OHL, LaRose scored 61 goals. In the AHL, his highest production was 2004-2005 with 20 goals and 22 assists for 42 points. LaRose did not tear up the AHL. If he were Boychuk, people would be labeling LaRose a permanent AHL player. The fact that 9 years ago, in the OHL with the Plymouth Whalers he had a grand scoring season is fascinating, but irrelevant.

 I hope that Maurice gets this entire year to show what he’s got. I think on the present course, with 1 win and 1 OT loss since the pre-season started, he will not be renewed; but he should be given the chance to show he can take this team to the playoffs. He is losing a good portion of the Hurricanes fanbase judging by the response at the RBC last night; but those things change on a dime with winning. Maurice is a hockey expert, and has a huge number of wins as an NHL head coach. I can’t envision how his approach to the forward lines can be successful, but I hope it is. Given LaRose’s performance since the 2009-2010 season, I cannot imagine any other NHL coach would move him between the second line and first line. It hasn’t worked yet.