Mike Sullivan has shuffled the lines after the team took a bad loss on the road against the Philadelphia Flyers on Sunday. The new lines are… well they’re something
The Penguins made some changes to their forward lines:
— Pens Inside Scoop (@PensInsideScoop) April 26, 2022
Guentzel-Crosby-Rust
McGinn-Malkin-Rakell
Zucker-Carter-Kapanen
Heinen-Blueger-Rodrigues
(Boyle)
Dumoulin-Letang
Matheson-Ruhwedel
Pettersson-Marino
Creating these lines is certainly a choice. I don’t think I would personally ever arrive on them.
Moving Rickard Rakell from the Crosby line isn’t what I would do, but I think the logic here is to try and get Bryan Rust going. He’s been in a slump. Sidney Crosby and Bryan Rust (and Jake Guentzel) are a very known and successful commodity. My counterpoint would be so are Bryan Rust and Evgeni Malkin. Rakell is doing very good things with Crosby. I don’t think Rust and Malkin are at a risk to struggle.
What I really dislike is putting Brock McGinn in the top six. There’s just no reason for it. His skill set doesn’t complement what Malkin and Rakell are going to try and do. I view McGinn as a third line fourth line tweener. He’s fine, but it is a very weird choice to add him to the top six. I definitely wouldn’t consider it based on the available players.
Putting Jason Zucker with the two forwards who might be struggling the most on the roster (Carter and Kapanen) is a strange way to try and get him going. If the Penguins wanted to switch up the situation on the Malkin line and try something different with Zucker they should have just flipped Guentzel and Zucker. I think Zucker would do well with Crosby. Guentzel will do good things with Evgeni Malkin. We already know this. The shakeup for the top six would look like this for me at the moment:
Zucker-Crosby-Rakell Guentzel-Malkin-Rust
Or you could do the following:
Zucker-Crosby-Rust Guentzel-Malkin-Rakell
The fourth line of Heinen-Blueger-Rodrigues in a bubble is fine, but to get there they made some suspect choices.
Given that my top six forwards would be Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jake Guentzel, Bryan Rust, Rickard Rakell, and Jason Zucker I would consider the following for the bottom six:
Heinen-Blueger-Kapanen McGinn-Rodrigues-Carter Boyle (extra)
This is what I would think about if I am using Kapanen in the lineup. I would rather load up the top six and then try to scrap together the next three players with the highest offensive upside together. It isn’t great, but with Carter absolutely struggling and Rodrigues’ tangible offense on hibernation what can you do? I would try to relieve Carter’s responsibilities by putting him on the wing. I think Rodrigues’ speed is a better fit for the center position now. Brock McGinn is a 4th liner for me on this team so that is where he is going regardless who his other linemates are.
If I didn’t want to play Kapanen:
Heinen-Blueger-Rodrigues McGinn-Boyle-Carter
Boyle and Carter could be interchangeable for who plays center or wing. McGinn could easily go to the right side to accommodate Boyle on the left hand side.
I think Boyle has done a better job than I thought he was going to do this year, but I also think the ideal situation would involve him being the 13th forward. This hinges on if Kasperi Kapanen feels like being competent and that is no guarantee these days.
As for the defense leaving Dumoulin with Letang is doubling down and I’m not sure you win that bet. I feel like this is one of those hills Mike Sullivan is more than willing to die on until it may be too late. I think Dumoulin would be on my bottom pair at best right now.
Needless to say I don’t understand the current line combinations or defense pairings. This is something that is entirely in the Penguins control and it will need to be something they get right. They have too many variables to overcome to be creating self-inflicted issues.
Thanks for reading!