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Sometimes I wonder if a fourth line as a designated shut down line is an antiquated aspect of hockey that's only practiced because the coaches from the last generation did it, so it must be the way to go. I would like to see four possession-based lines and see where that takes us.

Yeah, that "defense wins championships" thing may be true in football or baseball where there's a clear distinction between the offense and defense (though I'm not even sure it works there), but in more fluid games like hockey, basketball, or soccer its much less true. Not to say defense doesn't matter, but what constitutes "defense" as opposed to "offense" is a little murkier. Defensemen can really help generate a ton of offense by gaining possession of the puck and advancing it quickly and effectively. Likewise, the offense makes the whole process of defending much easier if they can hold the puck in the opposition's end and sustain o-zone pressure.

His backhand was lethel.

Tl;dr We didn't use our usual 4th line to try and shutdown Johnson and Kucherov this year OR last year in the playoffs. We use a line that consisted of 2 "scorers" and 1 "shutdown" forward. So why not roll that way all season long? Tatar - Datsyuk - Glendening against the Johnson line. Abdelkader - Glendening - Sheahan against Kucherov/ Johnson/ Drouin. Not our usual Miller - Glendening - Plug. Now I'm not saying we put Glendening on the top line. What I was saying was, can we make a defensively responsible scoring line as our 4th line? I would say yes we could. But there's also the Nielsen line that could be used for tough matchups, so that could be a better option too.

This is a biased argument though. You are comparing Glendening who started playing a full season at age 25 and Draper who never actually played a full season in the NHL until his 6th season.Draper played like 20 games in the first 3 years and in his 4th, 5th and 6th years he only played 39, 36 and 52 games respectively. Not to mention Draper's ice time was 1.5 - 2 minutes less (around 12-13 minutes a night) than Glendenings. Draper played limited minutes for 10 years in the NHL. Only in 2001 did his icetime go upto like 15 minutes a night (a bit more than what Glendening gets now which is 14.5 minutes a night). And when he got the higher ice time his scoring went upto 30, 35 points. It would likely be better to compare them when Glendening hits 32 years old and see if he could do what Draper did. Which until now, no other 4th liner in recent decades has. In his peak, Draper scored 24 goals, 40 points , had the best faceoff percent and won a Selke trophy. But I will say it's a risky argument to compare Glendening to Draper. One of them was a Selke trophy winning, top league faceoff guy who had 20 + short handed goals in his career. The other only matches the points due to higher ice time. As far as Kocur. He was a fighter. Not much else. My original point was Grind line vs our current 4th line rather than individual players. So line wise grind line still produced more and actually was successful in shutting down Eric Lindros's line. Wheras our current fourth line can't exactly do that. In fact our current 4th line had to be split up where Glendening was paired with Datsyuk to try and shutdown Johnson last year and this year we rolled with Sheahan - Glendening - Abdelkader. So it took Blashill one top 6 forward, one 3rd liner and one 4th liner to try to stop Kucherov/Drouin/Johnson. Which is my original point anyway. Take a look at the temporary 4th line of Sheahan - Glendening - Abdelkader that was used in the playoffs. That's not solely a shutdown line. That line has two scorers and a shutdown centerman. That's a scoring line on paper (probably a mid to low tier scoring line). The unfortunate issue was the philosophy still rode on eating up shots rather than creating some offense. But hey at least it's a start.

The best defense is a good offense

Having a third line made up on bona fide top six players didn't hurt either.

You wouldn't put that line against top line. You would put Nielsen against the top line because that's what Nielsen did when he played for the Islanders. That's what Zetterberg did in his prime. This whole 4th line against top line stuff only started like 3 years ago when Datsyuk and Zetterberg started aging. Otherwise Zetterberg's line was always the designated shutdown line. Nielsen is the new Zetterberg but not as elite. As far as grindline. You're comparing a 24-27 year old Glendening to a 20 year old Kris Draper who only played a total of 20 games in his entire first three years combined. If you compared the them at the same age range, Draper was the better producer with around 2 minutes less ice time per game. The other one was Kirk Maltby, who was also a better producer. But anyways, I don't know why Glendening is coming up lol. We're talking about an entire 4th line vs another 4th line. In 1998, the Grind line combined for a total of 72 points in the season, around 30 some goals. Maltby scored 14 goals and McCarty scored 14 the following year. All with 12-13 minutes per game of ice time. That's what made the grind line so good. That's what made them famous.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: in today's NHL, the best defense is an overpowering offense. The emphasis shouldn't be on defending. The emphasis should be on forcing the other team to defend. Get the puck, hold on to the puck, make plays with the puck. Own the puck. Look at the season the Penguins just had. Struggled mightily under Mike Johnston, who believed they needed to play an ultra-conservative "defense-first" brand of hockey. Couldn't score for beans. Then Mike Sullivan comes in, completely flips the script, lets all his horses run free, and the team transforms into a juggernaut. Granted, we lack elite-level forwards, which complicates things.

Tweaking his lines a bit with the same players - Vanek - Nielsen - Nyquist Abdelkader - Larkin - Tatar Helm - Athanasiou - Zetterberg Jurco - Sheahan - Mantha Glendening / Pulkkinen Every single has one if not more defensively responsible player. 1st line - Nielsen 2nd line - Abdelkader/Larkin 3rd line- Zetterberg/Helm 4th line - Sheahan Every line also has a net front guy - 1st line- Vanek 2nd line - Abdelkader 3rd line - Helm 4th line Mantha Every line also has a goal scorer 1st line - Vanek/Nyquist 2nd line - Tatar 3rd line - AA 4th line - Mantha Every line also has a playmaker 1st line - Nyquist 2nd line - Larkin 3rd line - Zetterberg 4rd - Sheahan/Jurco It's really not that hard to roll 4 defensively responsible scoring lines. Bowman did it. Babcock did it. Tons of coaches did it and were successful. They have the players, they just don't get as creative.

I disagree. We would still have a ton of defensively responsible forwards, at least one on every line... That lineup would be nothing like the Oilers...

"Forgive but not forget" This is something that's never going to go away. And will always be on his Red Wings "report card". It's a matter of forgiving him because of his 14 other years of dedication.

2nd one lol. Not much of a competition. You just posted 4 scoring lines with the second one and the 4th line would probably be one of the best 4th lines in fhe league.

Truth. Although we're not s***. Just no where what we were.

But we're not getting Steve Ott as he's been throughout his career. We're getting him at the end of his career. Two very different things.

He'll be a fan favorite.

Ott is going to surprise all!

If Blashill figures out lines, usage and deployment we could have a really good season. If he coaches like he did last season, well then I don't see much success.

I'd like to see Larkin, Abby, Tatar and Nyquist get 17-18+ minutes a night. And I'd like to see the veterans (except Nielsen) have a significant drop in ice time. The 4th line should have their 5 on 5 time reduced as well. Also AA needs to have his ice time increased. He made the most out of his limited ice time last year. I'm not sure what else a player has to do to prove himself. What was it like 8 or 9 goals he scored in 30 something games with like 9 minutes of ice time a night??

do you remember the first half of the season when he'd be juggling and mixing up the lines like crazy? hopefully the new staff surrounding him will help to make better adjustments and line combos

This is what needs to change. The 4th line should be played as a 4th line, not as a 2nd or 3rd line. Blashill needs to learn from last year from our putrid offense that things like that won't work.

The best thing for the team long term is having AA and Mantha playing every night. The problem is, management is focused solely on The Streak and overloaded the team with mediocre vets.

I'm leaning towards blaming things more on Blashill. For the longest time Babcock was all about "drive the offense and SHOOT THE PUCK" menatlity. With Blashill idk what his dam philosophy is. Under Blashill the non possession players all had their 5 on 5 time increased and possession players like Tatar had their ice time decreased. On top of all that the Red Wings dropped from being Ranked 8th in shots against with Babcock to ranked 16th under Blashill. And shots against does correlate to goals against in our case. We were the only team with one of the worse goals for/against ratios in the league that squeezed into playoffs.

He's no captain of mine. My only captain or assistant captain is whoever is on the Red Wings. Red Wings over everybody.