Shake It Up

In the past several months head coach John Anderson has mixed up the forward lines until you can't recognize them, you certainly can't label them, because tomorrow they may be different. One of the few constants this season though has been defense, maybe that's where Anderson should pay some attention.

If you look at the current three defensive pairings you see some rather strange disparity among them. The current "top" pairing is just that, tops in both offensive production and defensive responsibility with Enstrom posting 4G 35A +10 and Kubina posting 5G 23A +9. This top pairing shows skill at both sides of the ice and is a total asset to the club.

The "bottom" pairing of Salmela/Valabik shows practically no offensive upside with a total of 7 points tallied between them but they do provide some stay at home defense and are a combined +5. This pairing isn't so much of a threat but it has proven that it can stay at home and keep the net clear for the most part. Even if you substitute out Salmela for Schubert, who would normally be in if not injured. You're talking about a rise in offensive production to 9 points total and only a -6 combined. For a bottom pairing not bad at all.

Then you have the "middle" pair or the 2nd pairing..this should be slightly less than your top pair but should be better than your 3rd pairing for sure. These guys get pretty big minutes in fact Zach Bogosian leads all Thrasher defensemen with an average of 22:41 of ice time per game. Ron Hainsey, his partner averages 21:28 per game. For all those minutes played it can't be argued that they are the worst defensive pairing we have on the ice. Their offensive production is moderately good with a combined 12G 22A but their defensive responsibility is horrendous at a combined -23 that means for all their offensive production they have actually only added to our bottom line by 11 points. Not so impressive, is it?

So with all those stats laid out, I return to my point, which is maybe Anderson should quit tinkering with just the forward lines and let's spend some time getting the defense right. There are, of course, some obvious things that could be done. So let's play armchair coach and make some moves here.

1) Split the top two pairs up. I'd put Bogo and Kubina together and Enstrom and Hainsey together. This spreads out both offensive production and defensive awareness and size.

2) Give 3rd pairing some more minutes. Right now the 3rd pairing is averaging about 13:15 per game. I would try to get that maybe into the 16 minute range and by taking some of those minutes away from the top two pairs perhaps they won't be spent by the end of the game where fatigue in defensemen can be dangerous and let in goals.

Some may argue that the reason why the 3rd pairing is doing pretty good on the +/- side is because their minutes on the ice is limited, thus giving them less opportunity to make mistakes. I think that their success with the 13 minutes given them shows that they are doing well enough to give them more time, the worst that happens is they prove they can't handle the responsibility and you cut their minutes back to where they were when they were getting the job done.

One thing is for certain, the Bogo/Hainsey pairing is not working. In fact, it's a liability that needs to be changed. Perhaps instead of tinkering with the scoring lines we start from the back part of the ice and see if we can get the defense stronger, therefore we may not need to have to pile on the goals to make a win stick.

So what's your assessment? Do you see the defense needs changing or do you think that it's fine? What would you do...let me hear