Lemaire allergic to goal scoring

[Devils731]

So do you think that demoting Zubrus to the 3rd line and off the PP and replacing him with Rolston and Niedermayer is the answer? Jacques has made some bonehead decisions all year and I think partly has to do with the scoring woes this season. Now it probably isn't fair to put all the blame on Lemaire, but this team might be the lowest scoring playoff team when it is all said and done and are among the worst scoring teams in the entire league. One way or another...the Devils have gone backwards in that regard.

If things aren't working you have to try new things and things haven't been working. Why would I passionately care about trying Zubrus on the 3rd line for a bit? Or giving Rolston another shot at a top 6 role? These things aren't locked in forever and what was being tried needed to be shaken up. All the top 6 has been struggling so mixing things up again is a good idea, change, any change, often gets people working on a higher level.

[Devils731]

Anything that has Rolston in the top 6 above Zubrus is going to piss people off, rightfully so.

Why? They all played like offensive crap the past few games. Nobody is making any passes, nobody was winning any battles. That's your problem, not the combination of lines.

Rolston-Nieds-Clarkson is one the best 3rd lines in the NHL people were touting, but god forbid it's flipped, and then that's the big issue. Rolston had 4 Shots on goal last game. Zubrus has done that 4 times all year, I think.

Bottom line is the players need to be performing better and then the line combinations wouldn't matter. On the other side, the players aren't playing well and so the line combinations aren't mattering.

[nyrsuck26]

Jacques needs to take a chill pill and stop fvcking with his players' heads by switching the lines every 2 minutes.

[msweet]

Elias and Kovy might be a good choice in 4-4 OT but they will not work 5-5

Elias can't win face-offs often enough and thus they lose the puck and then have to fore-check which neither is particularly good at

Since we all agree that Rolston should not/will not end up in the top 6 (after JL's experiments ends) IMHO we need to decide who is our top LW... and that is Kovlachuk

Zajac is our #1 center so with that thinking our top two lines should look like:

Kovy-Zajac-XXX

Parise-YYY-ZZZ

Now who is YYY determines how the lines go

YYY= Elias or Zubrus (no other choice). I like Elias at center for his vision and passing but as I have sated over and over, Elias can't win face-offs and isn't really strong enough (no ability on the boards) to be a 2nd line center.

so we are left with YYY=Zubrus

so the way I see this coming down when JL moves Rolston back to line 3 (and Lou swallows hard on the $5M for a 3rd line winger)

Kovy-Zajac-Elias

Parise-Zubrus-Langenbrunner (Zubrus=Stasny?)

We have 3 top 6 LW.... not such a terrible problem..one of them has to play RW

I could make an argument for Pelley to play with Kovy on a line, but JL is not doing that. Sometimes when you have a player that bangs and charges he disrupts the defensive flow and makes space for a hot-dog player (kovlachuk)... but that is a short term solution and just won't be tried.

[devlman]

Is it too late to hire Dave Tippett?

[Jerzey]

Keep the lines the way they worked and stop with this rotation in the corner crap. It doesn't create enough chances.