Bozak on the 1st line? Hilarious, sure he'll win faceoffs but he'll also be slow and never in proper position in his own zone.

He might make the team, but these will not be the lines.

the idea is to balance the top 3 lines. It gives the oppurtunity for O'Reilly, Schenn/Schwartz or Tarasenko to go up against other teams 3rd and 4th lines. It might be an interesting idea for a few games. It could happen. Maroon / O'Reilly / Kyrou were all playing together last night and had good chemistry.

Balanced attack

You are wasting Teresenko with that lineup. Steen and Bozak aren't at all fast enough to help him out, defenders would just key in on him and the other two would be ineffective against anyone with speed, especially Bozak. St Louis will have 2 very powerful lines an okay 3rd line and a average 4th line this season. That's not bad at all. Spreading it out like this and you weaken your top 2 lines to marginally improve your 3rd and 4th lines. There are maybe 3 teams in the NHL who can run 4 lines that will cause major matchup problems. 2 of them are in the Atlantic and the other is the Jets.

If Kyrou plays well enough to earn top 6 minutes and play with Maroon and O'Reilly then Vladi plays with Schwartz and Schenn... Bozak will not be centering Vladi and getting top line minutes.

Blues have potential to have 4 very solid lines. All capable of scoring.

These lines are ridiculous. O'Reilly on the 3rd line & Bozak on the 1st?? It would be balanced with Bozak on the 3rd. Also, did you forget about Fabbri he is a skill guy with tons of talent but has been injured for most of the past 2 years. He will play top 9 with PP minutes over Kyrou, Maroon & Thomas.

I thought the Blues wasted a year with Kyrou being in the minors last year but let's not proclaiming him as a Calder favorite.

you actually make a lot of sense. Maybe switch Kyrou and Tarasenko?

I said he could win the calder, not a favorite

i see ther top 3 lines all getting close to equal ice time with this setup

It would be a 1a 1b situation with a 3rd line that is as good as a lot of 2nds and a young skilled 4th.

First of all Bozak is 3rd line centre at best.

I say Tarasenko should play with Schenn and make that the 2nd line and put O'Rielly with guys who defend fairly well and make him your shutdown line. Bozak should get some offensive guys but know that the line will bleed scoring chances against so they'll need to be sheltered. And I don't know enough about the 4th line guys to say much about them.

Load up on the top 2 though because Bozak isn't good enough to be playing more than 17 minutes a game.

The 1st line you have here isn't very good. Bozak is slow and defensively very bad. Steen was a very good player in his prime but he's lost a step and is a shell of his former self. You are wasting Tarasenko with those linemates.

Really not a fan of Bozak? H was originally going to be 2C until the O;Reilly trade happened. He is smart, good at faceoffs, was part of a lethal power play last year. He is 32, but still has a few good years left in him. I dont see him as permanent 1C, But he could a center a line with Vladi if we need to shake things up, go for equal lines.

I know... I am agreement that Bozak cannot be the number 1C, I was saying 1a 1b being Schwartz Schenn Vladi and Maroon O'Reilly Kyrou if Kyrou does make the team and plays top 6.

I'm a Leafs fan so I have watched a lot of Bozak over the years. He's a great guy and a good teammate but he's not even close to good enough to be anything above a 3rd line centre. TO let him walk for 2 reasons, 1) they were going after a much bigger fish in Tavares, and 2) he was going to ask for way more than he was worth. This is a contract you guys are going to regret, he just isn't good enough to play these kind of minutes.

This is a good point of discussion. The coaches are intending to play ROR with Tarasenko, which is good in terms of giving Tarasenko a capable center, but bad in terms of figuring out matchups. ROR can handle tons of DZ starts/tough matchups but that would essentially waste some of Tarasenko's scoring ability. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a lot of line jumbling based on the score. It gets even more complicated when you see that Bozak's line probably needs to be started in the OZ a lot, but ROR is gonna give you the best faceoff odds. Now, toss in the fact that a rookie, Thomas, is expected to center the 4th line... No matter how the lines shake out, the coaches are going to have to figure out which lines can handle the defensive matchups without wasting offensive-minded guys.

Your best player is Tarasenko, and he should play with the best players you have, or at least the 2nd best centre you have. Let him and Schenn continue to improve their chemistry. Maroon is a 3rd liner at best, and Bozak is at best a 3C. This "balance" you speak of isn't really there. You have 2 very good lines and okay 3rd line and I can't really say anything about the 4th line. I don't know enough about those players.

it is so hard to figure out lines because we have 11 top 9 Forwards, and 4 top 3 centers.