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I'm serious when I ask you this because I don't follow hockey as close as many of you do and I guess this might be the reason why.

How do you evaluate talent in hockey? I mean, how do you know who should be a 1st liner, 2nd liner and on?

Fat_Bulldog wrote:I'm serious when I ask you this because I don't follow hockey as close as many of you do and I guess this might be the reason why.

How do you evaluate talent in hockey? I mean, how do you know who should be a 1st liner, 2nd liner and on?

I just don't see enough offensive game in Sobotka for him to ever be a top six forward, if that's what you mean. I don't truly have an evaluation method, but his game is centered around max effort, and even with that, he's a guy I still wouldn't give a lot of even strength minutes to because I don't see him creating enough goals to make it worth it. And at his age, it's not like he's going to get better.

He's got some value as a grinder and penalty killer, but I believe we've already seen his ceiling.

JackofDiamonds wrote:

GeddyWrox wrote:What do you all envision the lines to be, more or less?

Steen/Perron - Stastny - Tarasenko
Steen/Perron - Schwartz - Fabbri
Berglund - Lehtera - Rattie/Sobotka
All the rest

Schwartz centering and Sobotka not?

I would think more like:
Steen-Stastny-Tarasenko
Schwartz-Lehtera/Sobotka-Fabbri
Bergie-Lehtera/Sobotka-Rattie/Jaskin

If Sobotka doesn't return, then you have to get a little more creative with your 2nd/3rd line centers.

Schwartz Lehtera Tarasenko
Steen Stasny fabbri
Perron sobotka rattie
Others

TGantz wrote:Schwartz Lehtera Tarasenko
Steen Stasny fabbri
Perron sobotka rattie
Others

I forgot about Perron! You don't have Berglund. Him and Rattie battle for time??

Fat_Bulldog wrote:I'm serious when I ask you this because I don't follow hockey as close as many of you do and I guess this might be the reason why.

How do you evaluate talent in hockey? I mean, how do you know who should be a 1st liner, 2nd liner and on?

Fans probably spend more time debating it than they should. 4th line is an important distinction, because they are likely going to be skipped every other shift, so they just aren't going to get much ice time. To me the first three lines don't really matter how you order them. You just want to have good mixes of offensive skill without defensive liability. It is more important to find the right mix of players that compliment each other than what order they are put in.

The real issue is, if the Blues are going to be a Stanley Cup contender, they need 3 better centers than Sobotka.

The Wild are using Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" as their goal song this season.

Seems like they should've done that long ago, but still cool.

Popeye_Card wrote:

Fat_Bulldog wrote:I'm serious when I ask you this because I don't follow hockey as close as many of you do and I guess this might be the reason why.

How do you evaluate talent in hockey? I mean, how do you know who should be a 1st liner, 2nd liner and on?

Fans probably spend more time debating it than they should. 4th line is an important distinction, because they are likely going to be skipped every other shift, so they just aren't going to get much ice time. To me the first three lines don't really matter how you order them. You just want to have good mixes of offensive skill without defensive liability. It is more important to find the right mix of players that compliment each other than what order they are put in.

The real issue is, if the Blues are going to be a Stanley Cup contender, they need 3 better centers than Sobotka.

This also depends on scheme/system. 20 years ago teams had two offensive lines, one "energy" line, and one checking line.

Your first line and second lines were there to score offense.
Your third line was there to antagonize the other team and "generate energy".
Your fourth line was penalty killers and defensive specialists who could shut down the opposing first line.

Then, your first/second lines didn't get a lot of defensive zone starts. Your first line was generally designated for neutral zone starts, power plays, and focused on puck possession. The second line was given offensive zone starts, the assumption being your first line would push the puck into the oppose end, draw an icing, and then put your second line of offensive specialists into the offensive zone to get a goal.

The opposing team would use a mix of their checking/energy lines (one generally had bigger slow guys and your enforcer, the other had "scrappy" players) to disrupt the top two lines against their strengths.

In the mid/late 90s that started to change because of the Neutral Zone trap that teams like the Devils/Stars/Red Wings put into place. They wanted their top lines to back-check into the neutral zone to create the trap and use their offensive talent to generate goals from turnovers or fall back and force the opposing team to take weaker shots from the outer perimeter of their defensive zone. So with this sort of system your top lines played a more significant role in your defensive scheme and required defensive responsibility from every line. So you didn't have one guy sitting at the blue line near the offensive zone waiting for the puck, he should be back on his side of the ice putting pressure on the other team.

This allowed two things: 1.) you didn't need as much offensive skill to generate offense and 2.) you didn't need as many defensive specialist lines. So over time the 3rd line evolved from an energy role to another line that should generate offense. And the 4th line went from "checking" to "energy/checking/enforcing/not-enough-skilled-players-in-the-league-to-generate-offense".

Hitch was one of the coaches driving that innovation 20 years ago and continues to play a similar game now. He wants 3 lines that push offense and get fairly equal time. He also likes to play his first line against the opposing team's first line and considers his best 2-way forwards his best line. So someone like Tarasenko, who likes to float near the offensive zone, ends up with less minutes played than you would expect.

Anyway after several paragraphs of rambling - The 1st/2nd/3rd line sort of speak used to matter a lot more than it does today. Now you've really got 9 offensive players and 3 energy/specialists. Even positions are really starting to fade a bit. good 2-way players are expected to be able ot handle the middle lane in the ice as well as one side of the boards and be able to do that interchangeably with another wing. This is why the Blues tend to pair two players together and the third on the line gets swapped around a lot .The center and one winger are designed to swap between center ice and the wing more than in a traditional system to help keep better pressure in the neutral zone and allow the winger/center to break into the offensive zone to generate odd-man rushes more than if they had to stay in a specific lane. Having the other winger know he has to back-check in the center allows our actual center more freedom to abandon their defensive position and join the rush if it makes sense.

So the opposing defensemen have to worry about 5 different transitions instead of 3 and the Blues' puck moving defensemen can generate faster transitions knowing they don't have to keep the puck in the center of hte ice, either the center or the winger can break without giving up an odd man rush the other way back (in theory at least).

It's also why the Blues give up so many odd-man rushes, because the system is more susceptible to turnovers and bad positioning while the two forwards are changing zones.

Interesting Theo! Thanks!

Also, just read this about how fluid the lines are going into camp...

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/hockey/p ... 0bca1.html

Blues will announce Petro as the team's captain at a news conference tomorrow.