Leave the Lines Alone, Lemaire

by Tyler Bleszinski on Feb 17, 2010 9:08 PM EST

As this season has unfolded, I've been largely surprised at how well the Devils had played. They've been able to be successful in spite of missing their number one defenseman (Paul Martin) and probably their most key character player who also happens to score (David Clarkson). They've also missed a lot of key players at different times, including Elias, Oduya and Zubrus.

But one thing that has been disturbing to me as the season has progressed is Jacques Lemaire's tendency to change lines as often as NBC changes programming. He does it way too much. And I'm not going to question the wisdom behind it because I know what he's doing. He's trying to find a combination that clicks and stick with it. But there have been periods where a line works extremely well, like Zajac-Parise-Zubrus or even the Elias-Zubrus-Kovalchuk line, and it will have a bad two periods in the next game and he'll be changing it already. I would hope that once the Olympic break is over and the Devils hopefully get Clarkson back regularly that Lemaire can pick a couple of lines and stick with them, especially the scoring lines. I'd personally like to see the Zubrus-Elias-Kovalchuk line get a little more time to gel. And keep the ZZ Pops line together. That would then give you a third line that would feature Clarkson and Rolston. That's a lot of good depth.

But I truly think that players need time to learn each other and their tendencies. Lemaire was the one who former the infamous Crash Line that had a huge factor in leading the team to the Stanley Cup in 95. The A Line was absolutely crucial in getting them Cup number 2 in 2000. I know the team doesn't need that to win it all, but I don't think it can hurt, especially when you can develop two top scoring lines and I think the addition of Kovalchuk would give them that. Hell if he wanted to keep Parise-Zajac-Kovalchuk together and then just have Elias-Zubrus-Langenbrunner, I'd be fine with that. I just want to see some consistency for a more than a couple of periods. Give the lines a chance to develop that chemistry.

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I feel like the line changes are a chicken-and-egg situation

The big difference between Lemaire changing the lines and, say, Brent Sutter’s 2007-08 season where he nearly changed lines every game is that Lemaire’s changes have some kind of sense involved.

For example, in the January 29th game against Toronto where Parise-Zajac-Zubrus terrified Toronto’s defense; the fourth line got lit up twice. Zubrus was moved off that line in the third period to shore up the center position so they would stop being victimized by the Leafs’ fourth line. As the Devils needed more scoring, Zubrus was moved back with Parise-Zajac.

The larger issue at hand is the general team slump and that’s where the chicken-and-egg situation comes in. A line does well, like Parise-Zajac-Zubrus for one or two games and in the next game, they aren’t effective early. Given that the Devils needed results, for the Devils to do that, they need consistent efforts from the players. So does changing the lines go against that or is Lemaire changing the lines in the hopes that he’ll get the right combinations to work.

The return of players from injuries and a lack of practices have thrown things into more flux but that should sort itself right. When the Devils were successful earlier in the season, they only really changed lines mostly due to injuries – combinations that worked well together (e.g. Zajac-Parise) generally stayed together. For Lemaire to stick to some lines, the players in those lines need to be effective, if not productive and successful in games.

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by John Fischer on Feb 17, 2010 9:31 PM EST reply actions