Kaleta's Upside...

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Just to play devil's advocate again, "typically" based on what ... or, more to the point, when? What was the game like at the time that these roles were established? Maybe, since the game has changed, the effective and progressive coach changes the makeup of his line in response. In 2006-07, they all but abandoned the idea of two scoring lines, one checking line and one energy line. Instead, they ran three scoring lines, because the game had changed. Now that many teams have moved to a ... what did they call it on Versus last night ... oh yeah, a phalanx defense (4-5 guys collapsing around the net), maybe scoring lines need someone willing to get dirty to be effective.

 

 

I think most of what you're saying is academic, and makes my earlier point about "chemistry" and such.

 

Your initial question, though, doesn't make sense. If you are a natural goal-scorer, it's not a role you play on the team so much as who you are. Your talent is to score goals, hence you take on the role of being one of the team's "Goal Scorers" or "Skill Guys".

 

Skill Guys are usually on top lines, are they not? Regardless of how far back you look, since the idea of the game is to score goals, the guys who CAN score goals the most, I think were always considered the "top line".

 

The usefulness of demarcating what each of the four lines does (top two are goal-scoring lines, third line is checking, fourth is the so-called "energy" line or however you want to label them all) is up for debate. I personally don't care for the idea of building lines around those pigeonholes and I'm glad to see Ruff shaking them up a little. It only makes sense to tinker around until you have the best mousetrap you can put together with the parts available.