Speaking of getting better, how about Leivo does that? I still don’t know what number he is and I’ve watched every game. I’d like to see him do one single thing of note, doesn’t matter what. At least Rinaldo or Ritchie would be physical.

I'm confused

I a

added Pellitier to the line up instead of Simon

Oh boy that’s a piss poor take. Gaudreau has more room, Monahan is way more open, Leivo is a shooter and teams can’t just blanket Monahan now. He’s also provided much better defence for that line despite losing Lindholm on that line.

He had an assist in the last game on the Gaudreau goal. Considering we've scored over 50% of our goals so far this season on the man advantage and Leivo doesn't play on special teams we can probably give him a bit of a break production wise

More open than when Lindholm was on their line? I certainly don't see that. He also might be doing okay defensively, but it's still a downgrade from Lindholm. I'm obviously not expecting him to be Lindholm, we all know he's not that good, but to say he's making that line significantly better is just false, I would give most of the credit for that line looking good so far this year to Gaudreau personally, I think he's looked fantastic individually (great vision, slick passes, good zone entries, particularly last night). For a supposed shooter, 2 shots in 3 games playing on a line with our best playmaker/offensive playdriver just isn't doing it for me. He's got plenty of time to get it going, and it's nice that that's the most concerning thing right now, but I still think it's a valid point to expect a little more.


Yeah I suppose. I would personally have him on the second unit though, we don't have a right shot there and I really hate Lucic on the PP. If he's really got a rocket of a shot, set him up in the Ovechkin spot as a one-timer option, get Bennett in front of the net, and then support that with Backlund and either Dube or Mangiapane (unless you prefer one of them in front I guess). Right now Bennett/Dube are splitting time on PP2 and Lucic is full time, I would much rather Bennett be full time as the net front battle guy and Dube/Mangiapane/Leivo being the two remaining spots. I'm more concerned with the lack of shots, I would like him to be around 2-3 shots per game at least, not 2 shots in 3 games, including 2 games without any shots at all (first two). If they do keep playing him less than 12 minutes per night on average (14, 12.5, and under 9 respectively, which came on a night when Dube got hurt early) I don't know if we can expect that to change. I personally think around 14-15 would be good, but still, it's what you do when you're out there, and while I can forgive the lack of production early on a new team in a weird year and all that, shooting should come naturally for a shooter I think. It's kind of nitpicking when we have 5 of 6 points in the standings so far, but depth production will be very important this year, and now that all the big guns are going (big 4, Backlund, Gio, and Andersson all have goals already), I would like the depth, like Leivo, Bennett, and Simon, to start chipping in. We can't rely on our PP to stay at 37.5%.

If im choosing someone for the 2nd unit who has a ro ket of a shot its Mangiapane. No way Leivo has a better shot than him. I do agree Bennett should be in front though

Yeah I'm mainly talking about the options it opens up. Having a one timer option at the left dot just makes PP2 more threatening, with 5 left shots out there you know that the most threatening shots are gonna be one-timers from the right dot or screen shots, there isn't as much versatility and it seems easier to defend. I'm hoping this is just something they're aware of and not revealing until the PP needs a boost. Similarly, if PP1 slumps, sliding Andersson over a bit and feeding him one-timers with Tkachuk in front seems like something they should exploit more, I will beat the drum that Andersson needs to shoot more until he averages 3+ shots per game haha