Antro and Poni need to swapped on the 3rd line. Antro has almost never played LW (yet plays C and RW) and Poni has almost exclusively only ever played LW his entire career. Look your stuff up bro. They’re both lefties, why take them out of their comfort zones? The line is also almost implying (one of your more believable implications in this entire lineup admittedly) Burmi makes better strides at C because anytime Antro and Burmi play together Burmi is the one pushed onto the wing.

Also, I’d much rather scratch Thorburn than Miettinen. Miettinen provides special teams play both PP (which Thorburn should never touch) and PK (which he’s done better at than Thorbs), yeah maybe he’s a European non-lunchpail guy, but he brings a MUCH smarter hockey game, on both sides of the ice, to the table than Thorburn. I’d rather have more W’s on the table than Hits for this team.

Not terrible, but…better luck next time.

1)Kane – Jokinen – Wheeler
2)Ladd – Little – Burmistrov
3)Poni – Antropov – Machacek
4)Thorburn- Slater – Cormier

I wouldn’t be surprised if we dealt for a solid top 9 RW as Chevy said we’re not done by any stretch. Injuries will happen and Scheifele/ Telegin/ Miettenen will get called up. In all likelyhood we won’t see much of Scheifele or Telegin this year as we let them develop 1 more year and make a run for it next year!

 Also disagree with Cormier and Slater being on the same line. Assuming Cormier makes the team, he seems to be pretty good in the faceoff circle. No way Noel will put the two best faceoff guys on the same line.I think the top 2 lines will mostly be combinations of the following players:

Ladd/Little/Wheeler/Kane/Olli/Burmi with a few other players getting thrown in there as injuries take effect

I do like the idea of Poni/Antro/Burmi though. Putting Burmi with two fellow Russians might do a lot to help him play more consistently

Bottom line will be a rotation of Mittens/Slater/Thor/Cormier/Machacek

Not sure who will take Burmi’s place in the top 6 if he’s put with Poni and Antro. Maybe they should sign Semin.

1A: Kane – Jokinnen – Burmistrov: A player-maker in Burmi who can set-up two guys that like to shoot.

1B: Ladd – Little – Wheeler: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

3: Ponikarovsky – Antropov – Machacek – The ex-Leafs re-unite, Machacek joins the club to add scoring.

4: Miettenan – Slater – Thorburn – Scrap the GST line, dial-up MTS

With your set up we also have 3 bad faceoff men at centre. Burmi. Antropov, Olli and Little all win less than 50% of their draws. 

My best guess:

Kane – Olli – Wheeler: They are the most talented players at their respective positions.

Ladd – Little – Burmi: They all play solid 2 way hockey & I think Burmi needs the ice to continue his development.

Poni – Slater –  Antropov: Can handle tough minutes and not be the worst line in the league. GST could not do this and as a result GST was the most outshot line in the league.

Thorburn – Cormier – Machacek: They are a real 4th line. Coach can shelter them a little bit and Cormier will win some draws.

If they keep Ladd / Little and Wheeler together, Kane / Olli / Burmi spreads the wealth. I just really hope we don’t see any variation of GST this year. They didn’t get the puck deep often, they just usually scrambled around in their own zone getting shot at.