3 Lines? 4 Lines?

Nimrod · Post by **Nimrod** » Fri Dec 21, 2012 8:54 am

I don't disagree with any of your comments but would clarify one thing and honor your request to give credit to the unnamed penalty killer. Panek's line did start every period in the Tonka game. Since my daughter plays with Panek, I don't mind someone calling it the first line but I don't think that the above fact makes that so and I don't think that is fair to the rest of the girls. So far the coach has been alternating which line starts and the Panek line got the very tough draw against Peterson and Bowman this time. The unnamed penalty killer assisted on Panek's short handed goal; her name is Ally Praus. Ally has also done an outstanding job of anchoring her line, which has allowed the coach more flexibility on who plays when.

MNHockeyFan · Post by **MNHockeyFan** » Fri Dec 21, 2012 2:21 pm

Nimrod, thanks for clarifying! Interesting approach that the coach is using, but who can argue when it's working so well? Of course having so many skilled forwards makes it possible to have those "two first lines" that the coach can use interchangeably. And it also makes it that much harder for opposing coaches to match up their lines against them.

And like you say it really helps when you have a very effective penalty killer (like Praus) who typically isn't used on either of those "two first lines"... No doubt just about every other coach in the state would love to be in a similar position.

Nimrod · Post by **Nimrod** » Fri Dec 21, 2012 2:46 pm

You are correct, BSM is very blessed again this year with lots of solid players. This brings us all the way back to the post that started this thread. I can see why a person might think they are rolling their first line out there all the time even when they are way ahead. Its hard to keep track of which players are on the "first line" when you don't see much drop in talent from one line to the next.

VarsityDad · Post by **VarsityDad** » Fri Dec 21, 2012 3:13 pm

No, I was kind of wondering why, when you're up 12-0 after two periods, that you maybe couldn't bring a 4th line or some JV players along, but there have been explanations offered. I'm kind of sorry I brought it up now.

sinbin · Post by **sinbin** » Fri Dec 21, 2012 6:59 pm

VarsityDad, this is complete speculation on my part, but after two periods, if they don't have enough players on the bench, it's problematic to go back to ask the JV players to get re-dressed and come out to play. I suppose in theory the coach could do this, but I have never seen it done. The only other option is if the coach had a feeling in his mind prior to the game that it was going to be a blowout, he might have been proactive and suited up some extra JV players, just in case. I don't see many coaches thinking this far ahead, either. As you can see by the spirited discussion here, there aren't many easy answers.

royals dad · Post by **royals dad** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 9:01 am

Sin Bin

BSM plays in a conference with some teams that have extremly small youth programs and that do not have any move ins. They are obligated to play all the teams (the lower half only once). The coach could easily see that coming and have a few extra kids on the bench. I think people get a little bit riled up when a player from the US National Team gets an assist on the 14th goal in the middle of the 3rd period. No reason for her to be on the ice at that point, nothing against her she is great kid it is about coaching and having some class. Play 2 lines in the 3rd, your 3rd line and a JV swing line (for most teams 3rd line is a JV swing line). Dont tell them not to shoot but let them go full speed and see what they can do. It would be easy to pick the games that the swing line dresses for varsity.

There are certainly some people with long memories that have no problem with running it up on AHA these days.

GopherFanARM · Post by **GopherFanARM** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 10:30 am

Nimrod wrote:BSM doesn't really play a first line, second line and third line.

This game was my first time to watch BSM, and I was impressed by their depth up front. Alicia Praus stood out during warmups, and when she was on the third line over the boards, that told me something about the quality of the forwards. I agree that BSM could have made their lines more top heavy if they wished.

Nimrod wrote:In my opinion she is one of the best in the state at penalty kills and no she is not my daughter.

I liked her on the PK because she kept things simple, got the puck to the other end, and then went to work. Some of the top players attempt to get too fancy when shorthanded and lose the puck in bad spots while killing.

I agree with MNHockeyFan about the officiating. They should sit down with their supervisor and watch tape of that game and learn from it. Nobody bought a ticket to watch them take over the game in stretches. It wasn't one-sided; they were bad both ways, making calls out of nothing to put a team down two players and later ignoring obvious infractions that took away scoring chances. Luckily, I don't think that decided the game beyond the fatigue factor.

sinbin · Post by **sinbin** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 10:41 am

Royalsdad, thanks. Sometimes I give coaches too much credit and sometimes not enough, but to your point if the coach had a good idea (or even a fair idea) that the score would be lopsided, he should have added some more JV bodies on the bench. Worst case, they play 3 JV periods and are still eligible to play 1 period at Varsity. It benefits his program for the long haul, too, by giving the JV players some extra/higher quality ice time. I guess I'm used to the Lake conference where this is never an issue, based on the similar quality of teams from top to bottom.

D6 Girls Fan · Post by **D6 Girls Fan** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 8:43 pm

sinbin wrote:if the coach had a good idea (or even a fair idea) that the score would be lopsided, he should have added some more JV bodies on the bench. Worst case, they play 3 JV periods and are still eligible to play 1 period at Varsity. It benefits his program for the long haul, too, by giving the JV players some extra/higher quality ice time.

This would be my opinion, too, but its difficult to argue with the BSM record

sinbin · Post by **sinbin** » Sat Dec 29, 2012 11:08 am

Agreed, but I suppose that BSM's primary pipeline of players comes from outside the program, not from JV, so there is little incentive to make the JV players better so that they can one day contribute as varsity players.

MinnGirlsHockey · Post by **MinnGirlsHockey** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 1:09 pm

Original post - VarsityDad wrote:We just played a top team over the weekend and got killed - bad. We probably shouldn't even be playing this level team. What was funny was that they only skated 3 lines all game, and their dominant first line played the whole game. They don't even dress a 4th line. And this team has a large JV team. We got destroyed bad. They skated all three lines all game even when it was hopelessly out of reach. Is this a standard practice among the top teams? Not complaining that they were piling on, they really could have named the score. Why wouldn't you want to develop more kids, especially sophomores and freshmen? Do the top kids need better stats or something?

royals dad wrote:BSM plays in a conference with some teams that have extremly small youth programs and that do not have any move ins. They are obligated to play all the teams (the lower half only once). The coach could easily see that coming and have a few extra kids on the bench. I think people get a little bit riled up when a player from the US National Team gets an assist on the 14th goal in the middle of the 3rd period. No reason for her to be on the ice at that point, nothing against her she is great kid it is about coaching and having some class. Play 2 lines in the 3rd, your 3rd line and a JV swing line (for most teams 3rd line is a JV swing line). Dont tell them not to shoot but let them go full speed and see what they can do. It would be easy to pick the games that the swing line dresses for varsity.

There are certainly some people with long memories that have no problem with running it up on AHA these days.

I couldn't agree more with royals dad. Does anyone know why the BSM girls didn't go Independent this year like their boys did? (I apologize in advance if I missed a separate thread on this.) With 7 teams in the North Suburban Conference on the girls side, it seems like that would've made a lot of sense (maybe keeping Irondale and T-G on their schedule if they wanted to).

D6 Girls Fan wrote:
sinbin wrote:if the coach had a good idea (or even a fair idea) that the score would be lopsided, he should have added some more JV bodies on the bench. Worst case, they play 3 JV periods and are still eligible to play 1 period at Varsity. It benefits his program for the long haul, too, by giving the JV players some extra/higher quality ice time.
This would be my opinion, too, but its difficult to argue with the BSM record

sinbin wrote:Agreed, but I suppose that BSM's primary pipeline of players comes from outside the program, not from JV, so there is little incentive to make the JV players better so that they can one day contribute as varsity players.

I'm not as familiar with BSM's program as many here are, but do they truly expect their 6 seniors and 8 juniors to be replaced over the next 2 years by primarily freshmen (and transfers)? I see they have only 3 freshmen on the varsity roster this year (1 of these is the back-up goalie) and NO sophomores. It seems to me that there will need to be a decent number of these current JV players playing on the varsity 2 years from now.

Obviously the program has had a lot of success, but I don't know how any coach can see any harm whatsoever in playing a 4th line of JV players against a team like this (even all 3 periods, God forbid - and give the top line the night off) and beating St. Louis Park more like 9-0 or 10-0 (instead of 15-0 which was the final score). They did play their back-up goalie for that game so I will give them credit for that - although I wasn't at the game, I would doubt SLP had many (any?) legitimate scoring opportunities anyway.

D6 Girls Fan · Post by **D6 Girls Fan** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 2:30 pm

MinnGirlsHockey wrote:I'm not as familiar with BSM's program as many here are, but do they truly expect their 6 seniors and 8 juniors to be replaced over the next 2 years by primarily freshmen (and transfers)? I see they have only 3 freshmen on the varsity roster this year (1 of these is the back-up goalie) and NO sophomores. It seems to me that there will need to be a decent number of these current JV players playing on the varsity 2 years from now.

Obviously the program has had a lot of success, but I don't know how any coach can see any harm whatsoever in playing a 4th line of JV players against a team like this (even all 3 periods, God forbid - and give the top line the night off) and beating St. Louis Park more like 9-0 or 10-0 (instead of 15-0 which was the final score). They did play their back-up goalie for that game so I will give them credit for that - although I wasn't at the game, I would doubt SLP had many (any?) legitimate scoring opportunities anyway.

I watched every day and almost every game of the EP tournament this weekend. Lots of good games. Congrats EP! BSM has a very small JV, only 10 skaters in the games I saw. And it's like two separate teams. One dominant line (headed by one dominant player who scored a lot) and some very green teammates. When the second group was on, it was shaky. If they brought that top group up to varsity, they wouldn't have a JV. BSM is still a very small school compared to most other top teams.

MNHockeyFan · Post by **MNHockeyFan** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 2:40 pm

No question that BSM is putting all their hopes into this year, and perhaps next. But with almost all of the defense being seniors this year (and Halvorson in particular) this will be their best chance of getting to the State Tournament and possibly winning it. They'll still be very strong at the forward position and in goal next year as well, but after that they will have plenty of open spots for kids coming in as incoming freshmen for the next several years. As you say they will have to rely on bringing some girls up from the JV team to fill in what will still be remaining holes on their roster. But with ex-BSM and Dartmouth star Amanda Trunzo coaching the JV, those kids should start to show a lot of improvement, and some should be ready to step up....

It is a little puzzling why they have no sophomores on their team this year - I guess it was just a matter of not having any that were good enough to make this year's lineup. Not an ideal situation as you would like to see the class years spread more evenly on the roster.

MinnGirlsHockey · Post by **MinnGirlsHockey** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 3:23 pm

D6 Girls Fan wrote:I watched every day and almost every game of the EP tournament this weekend. Lots of good games. Congrats EP! BSM has a very small JV, only 10 skaters in the games I saw. And it's like two separate teams. One dominant line (headed by one dominant player who scored a lot) and some very green teammates. When the second group was on, it was shaky. If they brought that top group up to varsity, they wouldn't have a JV. BSM is still a very small school compared to most other top teams.

Thanks for the info, that's good to know. According to the MSHSL website, BSM has 15 skaters on JV -- if you're only seeing 10 skaters, perhaps some have been injured or have quit the team?

In any event, my point regarding the St. Louis Park game still stands -- SLP doesn't even have a JV team so there should've been no worries about leaving the JV team shorthanded that day by bringing up a line. I guess I'm in the camp that 15-0 games don't really benefit anyone and more effort should have been made to avoid this situation. Perhaps this will be handled differently next time, who knows.

sinbin · Post by **sinbin** » Tue Jan 01, 2013 1:45 am

As a reminder, skaters can play 4 periods, so with a little forethought and just the minimum amount of ingenuity, coaches can have allow their "bubble" players to play both JV and Varsity.

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3 Lines? 4 Lines?

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