I was thinking about stuff today and decided that we could really use an article about Joel Quenneville’s line choices. Because, certainly, we haven’t really covered the topic lately. Or something.
By my count, Joel Quenneville has used 95 different lines this year. Only one line has been together for more than 20 games - the line of Paul Stastny, Ryan Smyth and Milan Hejduk. Only 7 lines have even reached the 10 game mark, and two of those lines are checking lines.
Sure, we’ve had injuries. Lots of them. I would have loved to break down lines changes between “injury necessity” and “coaches whimsy”, but I just didn’t have enough fingers and toes to make those sorts of calculations. I did discover, though, that 40 different times he used a line as a one-shot deal. This includes some winners like Brad Richardson, Andrew Brunette and Wyatt Smith and my personal favorite, TJ Hensick, Kyle Cumiskey and Johnny Boychuk. No line has been safe from change. The 1st line has come in 18 different flavors this year to date, while we’ve seen 40 different combinations on the 4th line. 40!
I had originally crunched all these numbers in an effort to see which line was the most effective scoring-wise. But with so few lines together long enough to give any sort of sample size, there just wasn’t enough data to work with. For what it’s worth, here’s a ranking of the top 5 lines that have played more than 5 games together, based on highest number of EV points per game (the 5 game cutoff for this is extremely arbitrary, so take these numbers with an enormous grain of salt):
- Stastny, Smyth, Hejduk 2.2 Pt/G, 22 GP
- Sakic, Wolski, Brunette 1.8 Pt/G, 11 GP
- Arnason, Wolski, Svatos 1.8 Pt/G, 17 GP
- Stastny, Hlinka, Hejduk 1.7 Pt/G, 6 GP
- Stastny, Wolski, Hejduk 1.5 Pt/G, 10 GP
I don’t suppose I need to point out that Wojtek Wolski appears on 3 of our 5 best scoring lines this season.
EDIT: In a perfect example of small minds seldom differing, Joe was writing essentially the same post at MHH while I was doing this one. So, if you want to read this again, but with different words, check it out!
To try and bring a sense of restraint and accountability to our circle-jerk, I was wondering if you had any numbers to compare against the other teams in the league. Hell, just compare the Avs # of lines to the other 4 NW teams and see if there is this level of inconsistancy or not.
I mean, you just live in a basement right?
I wish I did, but I don’t. Instead, I’m just going to arbitrarily say that ours are not normal. I can do that, right?
I agree. I also arbitrarily say that the lines are not normal.
And honestly, I think ten games is a better judge of line performance, but that’s just me. Plus it makes for a smaller sample size and therefore less calculation. Which is good because I’m lazy.
why can’t we do this:
Forsberg / Sakic / Bruno
Smyth / Stastny / Hejduk
Wolski / Arnason / Jones
McCormick / Guite / Lappy
really, what is hard about this? I FEEL LIKE IM TAKING CRAZY PILLS!!!
Wow, those were exactly my lines posted on AD’s latest DPO blog. Great minds think alike, doc. And so do we.
Can we sub Hlinka for Arnason in that lineup and call it good?
Nothing against Jones, but I really hope a certain mustached guy figures out that Forsberg and Brunette would be great together. The docs lines are almost exactly what I would go with (yes, I’d go Arnie over Hlinka). I think the only change I would make would be swapping Smyth and Wolski. Either way, anything close to that would make me happy.
Forsberg and Brunette great together? Come on. It isn’t like they have ever hooked up for an awesome goal in Forsberg’s limited time here. I mean, maybe if they had the kind of chemistry where Forsberg would shoot wide of the net, intentionally aiming for Brunette’s stick and Brunette would then deflect it past…let’s say Marty Turco, then you might have a point.
But as it stands, there’s no reason to think the two would work well together. None at all. Nope. Nothing to see here. Move along now folks.
yeah, that would never work out
kind of OT, but I’m sure you all guys are aware of behindthenet.com as a stat source. it’s awesome.
i just saw this on hf, check this out: http://www.behindthenet.ca/2007/team_data3.php?sort=34
we have *1* 5 on 3 goal, the only team in the league with that low a total, and our GF / 60 min in 5 on 3 situations is a league low 5.6. How could you NOT at least fire the PP coach after a season like that with this talent?!!?!
Wow. Just wow. Horrifically bad stat. Thanks for the link … I actually have never been there. I just wait for DD to do some analysis and go from there.
I hadn’t been there before either. I knew our 5 on 3 wasn’t great, but that’s ridiculous.