It's the first game of the season, and you have no preseason games to judge the players by. Going purely by what you know now, how would you rig up your teams first game line-up? If your team has important unsigned players, I'll leave it up to you to decide whether you think they'll be in the line-up or not.<
><
>Vancouver Canucks:<
><
>Forward Lines:<
><
>Naslund-Morrison-Bertuzzi<
>Sedin-Sedin-Park<
>Carter-Kesler-Linden<
>King-Ruutu-Brookbank<
><
>Defence Pairings:<
><
>Allen-Jovanovski<
>Salo-Ohlund<
>Baumgartner-McCarthy<
><
>Goaltending:<
><
>Cloutier/Auld - split the games about halfway. Near the end of the season, pick a playoff goalie, and run with that choice.<
><
>I left Cooke out. I'd say we're more likely to not sign, or to sign and trade him, than we are to sign and keep him, though both are a possibility. For now, I'm leaving him out of the lineup.<
><
>I may be overestimating Park, but if I am, he can be replaced quickly enough. I just felt his play might work a bit better with the Sedins. King could fill (and in the past has filled) that spot too; he'd be my second choice there, if he were playing well at the time. I haven't seen Park play a great deal, so I suppose I could be way off on this too. Many people seem to want to see Carter play with the twins. Not sure why, but he'd be the third choice I suppose.<
><
>Obviously, Brookbank, Baumgartner, and maybe King are all on short leashes, with other prospects/benched players ready to replace them. Perhaps Ruutu as well. <i>There are many rules of<
>physics that govern our world.<
>There is only one exception.<
>His name is Nakor.</i><
><
>--Nakor, the Blue Rider<
><
><i></i>
If you were the coach, what would your team's line-up be?
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DEVILRAYS
Re: If you were the coach, what would your team's line-up be
Bleh...maybe when I get out of work and the Red Wings sign all the people they intend to, I might have an answer for this... <i></i>
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frog hopping kilik
Re: If you were the coach, what would your team's line-up be
OK, let's see here... This'll probably look kinda odd with a bunch of guys with almost no or literally no NHL playing time in it, but that's the way the Jackets are right now. They keep
inging more young guys up every year, though this year, they'll probably be better than normal because of the extra year of experience they just got. Here we go:<
><
>Forward lines:<
>Nash-Marchant-Vyborny<
>Sanderson-Brule-Zherdev<
>Picard-Hrdina-Motzko<
>Shelley-Fritsche-Wright<
><
>Defense pairings:<
>Foote-Klesla<
>Berard-Westcott<
>Richardson-Johnson<
>Suchy-Russell<
><
>Goalie:<
>Denis/Prusek/Picard, split about 70/20/10. Prusek is good enough that you could start him every fourth game or so for most of the year and not have to worry about automatically losing those games. Picard sucked in his last few NHL appearances, but that was because he was like 19 years old and had almost no experience. He's improved a lot since then, so he could start here and there.<
><
>Anyway, of the guys I just listed before, these are the ones with little to no experience, all of whom but one are Jackets' draft picks, along with their NHL ice time and stats therein:<
><
>C Gilbert Brule - first pick, '05 - none<
>LW Alexandre Picard - first pick, '04 - none<
>D Kris Russell - third pick, '05 - none<
>RW Joe Motzko - signed as free agent, '03 - none<
>D Aaron Johnson - fourth pick, '01 - 29 GP, 2-6-8<
>C Dan Fritsche - second pick, '03 - 19 GP, 1-0-1<
>G Pascal Leclaire - first pick, '01 - 2 GP, 0-2-0, 3.53, .899%<
><
>That's a lot of inexperience, sure, but all of those guys put up anywhere from good to really impressive numbers in the minors/in European play, particularly Brule (WHL, 39-48-87 last year) and Picard (CHL, 40-45-85 +20 last year). Either of these guys could both turn out like Zherdev, who only played in 57 games in his rookie year last year, but still put up a pretty damned impressive first-year 13-21-34. Besides, you gotta get experience sometime, so it might as well be now. Building chemistry takes time, so by giving a lot of young guys a chance to play together, you can see who works best with who and then keep them together regularly after that. <
><
>"When someone beats you with a flashlight, you shine light in all directions."<
>Ph33r flashlights.<i></i>
inging more young guys up every year, though this year, they'll probably be better than normal because of the extra year of experience they just got. Here we go:<
><
>Forward lines:<
>Nash-Marchant-Vyborny<
>Sanderson-Brule-Zherdev<
>Picard-Hrdina-Motzko<
>Shelley-Fritsche-Wright<
><
>Defense pairings:<
>Foote-Klesla<
>Berard-Westcott<
>Richardson-Johnson<
>Suchy-Russell<
><
>Goalie:<
>Denis/Prusek/Picard, split about 70/20/10. Prusek is good enough that you could start him every fourth game or so for most of the year and not have to worry about automatically losing those games. Picard sucked in his last few NHL appearances, but that was because he was like 19 years old and had almost no experience. He's improved a lot since then, so he could start here and there.<
><
>Anyway, of the guys I just listed before, these are the ones with little to no experience, all of whom but one are Jackets' draft picks, along with their NHL ice time and stats therein:<
><
>C Gilbert Brule - first pick, '05 - none<
>LW Alexandre Picard - first pick, '04 - none<
>D Kris Russell - third pick, '05 - none<
>RW Joe Motzko - signed as free agent, '03 - none<
>D Aaron Johnson - fourth pick, '01 - 29 GP, 2-6-8<
>C Dan Fritsche - second pick, '03 - 19 GP, 1-0-1<
>G Pascal Leclaire - first pick, '01 - 2 GP, 0-2-0, 3.53, .899%<
><
>That's a lot of inexperience, sure, but all of those guys put up anywhere from good to really impressive numbers in the minors/in European play, particularly Brule (WHL, 39-48-87 last year) and Picard (CHL, 40-45-85 +20 last year). Either of these guys could both turn out like Zherdev, who only played in 57 games in his rookie year last year, but still put up a pretty damned impressive first-year 13-21-34. Besides, you gotta get experience sometime, so it might as well be now. Building chemistry takes time, so by giving a lot of young guys a chance to play together, you can see who works best with who and then keep them together regularly after that. <
><
>"When someone beats you with a flashlight, you shine light in all directions."<
>Ph33r flashlights.<i></i>
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frog hopping kilik
Re: If you were the coach, what would your team's line-up be
I haven't even heard of some of those guys, like Hudler and McDonnell. Who are they, anyway? <
><
>"When someone beats you with a flashlight, you shine light in all directions."<
>Ph33r flashlights.<i></i>
><
>"When someone beats you with a flashlight, you shine light in all directions."<
>Ph33r flashlights.<i></i>