Wishful thinking – The 4th Line

There have been a few thousands of articles around the interwebs that have talked about the Oilers fourth line. Yeah I know the fourth line, why do we even bother? Well we bother because the current version is terrible when compared to other teams around the league. I get that the fourth line plays the least amount of minutes on your team, and generally play against the weakest competition. But what if it didn’t have to be that way, what if the Oilers fourth line could play against tougher competition and not bleed chances.

Here are two must read articles about player usage and the fourth line, they’re must reads and will give you a better understanding of how I am going to base my thinking the rest of the way in this post.

Hawks and Oilers: Bottom of the Order by Tyler Dellow (@mc79hockey)

The Luke Gazdic Comparables by Romulus’ Apotheosis (@RomulusNotNuma)

The article (and usage charts) by Romulus gives the perfect example of how the Chicago Blackhawks play their fourth line, and shows in comparison that on the Oilers, only third line center Boyd Gordon is used in the same capacity. But in the game against Anaheim I saw a semblance of something that Dallas Eakins might be able to form in to a reliable, tough to play against fourth line. The problem, due to the Oilers current depth chart this line happened to be the third for the Oilers, and look to be the same tonight against the Coyotes. That line is Boyd Gordon with Ryan Smyth and Steve Pinnizotto.

The line didn’t have the greatest night but there were signs of life there and the game left me with the hope that there might be a chance to finally ice a decent fourth line next season not as good but somewhat comparable to the Chicago Blackhawks.

So here’s my thought; (It’s a long shot to work but hey, worth a shot)

A capable fourth line that consists of wingers Matt Hendricks, Steve Pinnizotto and a capable center to play against the other teams better competition and not constantly scrambling in their own zone. I’m not even against putting a guy that’s already in the organization, like Will Acton there. This way you have to big grinding wingers that can skate, handle the puck and create some offensive talent. The job of the fourth line isn’t just to keep the puck out of the net, it’s to try and keep the puck hemmed in the opponents end.

Pinnizotto has only 13 NHL games on his resume, but MacT knows him from his time with the Chicago Wolves. But I do like what I saw and his size, skating ability makes him a plausible choice for bottom six duties.

This gives the team a fourth line of bigger bodies that isn’t afraid to dump, chase and bang but also has the ability to carry the puck into the zone and create chances that way. None of the three are afraid to drop the mitts either, not heavyweights but the type of players that will stick up for themselves and their teammates when called upon to do so.

I originally toyed with the idea of putting Philip Larsen on the wing with these two, which we saw Eakins do the other night out of necessity, but this is only if Hendricks sticks as a third liner. This would give them a smaller speedy option that can help create some of those above mentioned chances, but would take away some toughness. Mark Arcobello also fits this role well and with his new $600K contract is probably the more realistic guy to center this line, but can play all the way through the depth chart.

This is just a small example of the many improvements that need to be made by the coaches and management this offseason and into next season, but an important one none the less.

Make sure to comment below with your thoughts or hit me up on twitter.

Thanks for Reading

I found today while browsing the net — Brandon Bollig, thought I would share it!