Line Matching: October 25th

Both games on this two-gamer aren’t perfect in terms of line-matching, as both home coaches tend to spread their lines out fairly evenly. There will still be some 3rd/4th line match-ups that could prove fruitful, looking beyond the top lines tonight.

St. Louis Blues vs. Calgary Flames

Calgary	St. Louis	Advantage
CGY1 (Gaudreau-Monahan-Ferland) CGY3 (Bennett-Jankowski-Lazar)	STL1 (Schwartz-Schenn-Tarasenko)	STL1: No matter which line the Blues’ top line faces, they’ll have a clear advantage. The Schwartz/Schenn duo continue to dominate possession and scoring chances. They’re getting 0.63 shots on goal per minute but 0.7 scoring chances/minute, which puts them in elite company. With a pure finisher on their line in Tarasenko, they should be able to convert those chances. With only 21 career minutes at 5v5, there’s not much to look at in the way of information on Jankowski, but the Lazar/Bennett line has been good but not great in their time together. Monahan/Gaudreau have also won the possession battles, but have probably their toughest match to date.
CGY2 (Tkachuk-Backlund-Frolik)	STL2 (Sobotka-Stastny-Steen)	CGY2: Sobotka has been a drain on possession, getting crushed along with Paul Stastny to the tune of some sub-45% metrics (corsi, shots, chances). With Steen on his line – who typically is a stud but last year had his worst possession season to date – expect that to marginally improve, but not enough to compete with the 3M line. The 3M line has regained their form that was lacking at the start of the year and now dominate every category except high-danger chances.
CGY4 (Versteeg-Stajan-Brouwer)	STL3 (Paajarvi-Sundqvist-Bennett) STL4 (Upshall-Brodziak-Thorburn)	Even: Typically, any bottom six line should show well against the defensive black hole that is Calgary’s fourth line, but Paajarvi has somehow been worse. Sub-40% possession with almost every linemate he’s had this season doesn’t bode well, although he has faced some strong competition. The Brodziak line hasn’t been much better.
Conclusion: Line-matching may not be perfect in this game, as coach Mike Yeo recently said that the Blues will sometimes use their bottom six to fend off the opposition top six, which would free his studs to go HAM against lesser opposition. In this game, with Calgary having a “shutdown” line, expect the second lines to match up against each other often while the rest will be a mish-mash. Off a back-to-back and with a stacked first line, expect the Blues to be ultra-chalk tonight, but the 3M line should perform fairly well and the bottom six of each are a wash. Any time Calgary’s top offense gets to go against the bottom six of the Blues should be very tilted.

Columbus Blue Jackets vs. Buffalo Sabres

Buffalo	Columbus	Advantage
BUF3 (Nolan-Reinhart-Bailey)	CBJ3 (Dubois-Dubinsky-Anderson)	BUF3: Reinhart has barely played with Jordan Nolan and Bailey, but drives possession and owns scoring chances (60%). He’ll be in a little tough to put points on the board, but plays on the (tepid) first power play for the Sabres so could be an interesting single bullet. Dubinsky has actually looked very solid with both Anderson and Dubois, but allows a decent number of scoring chances against. The edge with these two matched up would be a small one to BUF3.
BUF4 (Moulson-Larsson-Griffith)	CBJ4 (Calvert-Dalpe-Milano)	BUF4: Dalpe is a possession driver in a small sample, but has barely touched the ice with either Calvert or Milano, and is on for a good number of scoring chances against no matter his linemates. Conversely, Larsson/Griffith are a very solid pair.
Conclusion: Columbus has tried to get a good chunk off ice time with their top line against secondary competition (6 minutes vs. TB2, 7 minutes vs. LAK2), but they still see time against the opposition’s best. That leaves CBJ2 to play a close to 50/50 mix against second and third lines. Columbus will win both even strength matchups, either CBJ1/CBJ2 are very much in play. On a two-day slate, getting cute with a 3^rd/4^th line player could be needed to take down a GPP – see TOR4 on Monday night – and both Larsson and Reinhart are interesting in that regard.