Line Combinations, Special Teams, and the Balance of Math and Art

Hockey is a hard game to pin down sometimes

Today at training camp, the Stars spent the bulk of their approximately 40-minute practice working on special teams and 6-on-5 situations.

They also did some drills earlier on that feature what looked like actual line combinations, and if you’d like to overreact to forward lines, then here you go:

Robertson-Hintz-Rantanen
Steel-Duchene-Seguin
Johnston-Faksa-Bourque
Bäck-Hryckowian-Bastian
Erne-Hyry-Blackwell

The defense pairs were what we’ve been seeing all camp, with Lindell/Heiskanen, Harley/Lundkvist, and Bichsel/Lyubushkin being rolled while Alex Petrovic and Vladislav Kolyachonok continue to casually loiter around the seventh (and presumably final) spot on the NHL blue line.

Seeing Radek Faksa centering Wyatt Johnston was a bit of a surprise, though I have to admit I wasn’t putting too much stock into practice lines with 15 forwards the day after a road game. With one more preseason game still to play, it seems clear to me that Glen Gulutzan is still tinkering with different mixes when it comes to the forward groups, and that was even apparent last night in St. Louis, when the Stars rolled different top-nine looks in each of the three different periods.

But according to Gulutzan after practice on Wednesday, the variety of lines in the game was experimentation with a purpose. And his team knew it was possible.

“I had [Johnston] on wing in the second, and then I mixed the lines around in the third,” Gulutzan said, “Just was looking for a few different things, and exhibition allows you to do that a little bit. But I’ve got no problem, I told them, during the regular season, I’ll mix things around.”

Practice today was further evidence of that mixing process, with Gulutzan putting Johnston back on wing—but next to a center known more for his checking prowess (Faksa) than the playmaking one Johnston played next to last night (Duchene).

Of course, Gulutzan knows that you can’t mix and match forever.

“Now, it’s a delicate balance,” Gulutzan added on Wednesday. “You don’t want the bingo balls going in there every day, and then there’s no chemistry. But like I said, I believe in pairs. And if I put a piece here or there that can get us a little pop, I will.”

The words “rhythm” and “pop” are a bit subjective, certainly. But over time, most NHL coaches are adept at intuiting what larger sample sizes of numbers will bear out: Some lines just work, and some just don’t. And you might as well get a look at a few different combinations before the games start counting.

Even still, I don’t think there’s much point reading into the forward lines with cuts still to come on the roster. Let me explain. (I guess you weren’t preventing me, so I don’t actually need you to “let” me explain, but you know what we mean.)

Hypothetically, there is one possible explanation for why we saw the lines we saw today, and it’s more about who won’t be playing on Saturday in the team’s final preseason game as it is about who will be together.