We are 15 games deep in the 2015-16 NHL season, and outside of Jonathan Quick playing forward or Andy Andreoff suiting up as a top line wing, we've seen pretty much every thinkable and reasonable line combo.
The Kings have put themselves near the top of the Pacific division with a 9-6-0 record, but it has not been done with a stable and consistent roster.
We have seen Muzzin and McNabb on the top pairing. We have seen Ehrhoff play with every single member of the defensive corps outside of Doughty. In the fray though we have seen one of the better defensive pairings come out of it all: Muzzin and Martinez. Nevertheless, the Sutter Blender is in full effect right now.
In the forward group the only real consistency has been the line Lucic, Carter, and Toffoli. Understandably. Everything else has been out the window. Andreoff has been elevated to 3C, Nick Shore to 4C and briefly wing on the top line. Brown has gone from 3rd to 1st. Gaborik has been on the 3rd, 1st, and 4th lines. It can be tough to understand it sometimes considering the frequency in which it happens. How are you supposed to develop chemistry with your line when they change every other game or so?
In an article by LA Times Reporter Helene Elliott, Dustin Brown maybe hinted at the key to the line juggling.
"One thing that changes when you go from playing with Kopi to playing with Shoresie is the type of defensemen you're playing against"
At least that's the thinking behind it.
This season, Brown has faced 6th lowest corsi Quality of Competition (QoC) on the Kings, while also generating some of the worst shooting percentages and an insanely high individual fenwick generation. While the captain is correct in that he faces lower competition if he is with Nick Shore, it may still come down to just some rough puck luck for 23. Likewise with Nick Shore, Trevor Lewis, Christian Ehrhoff, and Marian Gaborik.
While Sutter is doing the right thing by hockey coach standard, ala rotating lines, elevating and decreasing certain player roles to send a message, some of this is just pure dumb luck that will correct itself as the season moves on.
The outlying numbers on players like Nick Shore, Brown, and Gaborik are all pretty good. In an instance where Sutter opts to promote Andy Andreoff ahead of Nick Shore...well...that seems a bit nonsensical. Shore has been the single best shot suppressing players on the Kings so far this year.
Other names high on that list, the recently benched Christian Ehrhoff, Dustin Brown, Trevor Lewis, and Tanner Pearson. All players in which are struggling offensively and that the Kings would like to get some semblance of offense from. You hate to say that this is just how it is with the Kings, but this really is just how it is with the Kings. The system is defense heavy, low shot quality driven, but with enough spaghetti thrown at the wall by hot players...you get wins.
The early season line juggling has less to do about stats and performances though, and seems more likely to do with the mental approach by the team. Sutter is a smart guy and a very good motivator by most accounts. This seems to be just a tactic to get guys in a more urgent mental state. Is Nick Shore necessarily doing anything wrong right now? Meh, aside from scoring the one off goal here or there, not really. However, the mindset of Sutter is to throw him different linemates, different looks, and or decrease/increase his role in order to set a new mental approach with his players. The more things change the more things stay the same unfortunately. It is not, however, an incorrect move on Sutter's part to try and work something up within the players. He has had a much quicker trigger on juggling line combos and pairings this season compared to last year. So far this year the Kings have used a combo of 10 different forwards lines and 10 different defensive pairings. Since LeftWingLock does not go back to past seasons, we can only vaguely remember the pairings and combos, and it does not at all seem like that many were used.
It is not uncommon to see teams do this (most teams in the league use around 9-12 different forward pairings and 7-10 different D pairs over a season), but with the Kings winning more than they are losing it seems strange. Perhaps it is a bit of a reaction to last season, where the Kings sat and waited it out with struggling and slumping forwards for ultimately too long. Proactive may be the best approach for Sutter.
In the end, line swapping can be less about stats, and more about a mental approach, preparation, and flat out just giving guys a different look, feel, and motivation to their play.
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