Carolina Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour has some interesting decisions coming up regarding the placement of his players this season.
The coach has been well known for not numbering his lines and sometimes seems to move players from line to line almost at will.
In a recent interview with Adam Gold, Brind’Amour denied moving players around very much and seemed to indicate that too much is made about the construction of lines.
“It gets talked about way more than we do …………. I think that is a little overdone because everyone is looking for something to talk about.” (about the 4 minute mark)
Andrei Svechnikov might disagree with his coach a bit here.
After the Russian forward was moved to the first line with Sebastian Aho and Seth Jarvis during the post season, his offensive production improved. He led the team with 8 goals in 15 playoff games.
Jarvis and Aho also did well scoring 16 and 15 points each, respectively.
During the regular season, Svechnikov played most often with Aho and Jack Roslovic, (177 minutes). He had 8 goals scored in that time, for an average of one goal scored every 22 minutes.
(Speaking of Roslovic, he has yet to have a contract at the time of this posting).
Next, the winger played the most with Jordan Staal and Jordan Martinook, (133 minutes). He had 9 goals during that time for an average of one goal scored every 13 minutes.
The third most minutes were played with Martin Necas and Jesperi Kotkaniemi where he only scored one goal in 106 total minutes.
Looking at this chart, he does not seem to have much success playing with “KK”.
(Information from Dobber Hockey – https://frozenpool.dobbersports.com/frozenpool_linecombo.php?select=F&forward=CAR%3A4864%3AANDREI%3ASVECHNIKOV&games=2024-2025%3AR%3A99&period=ALL&situation=EV )
During the playoffs, he had seven goals scored in just 62 minutes with Aho and Jarvis for an average of one goal scored every 8.8 minutes.
Looking at these stats, if Svechnikov does not play on the first line he would be better off on the third line with Staal and Martinook, (if Martinook stays there) rather than be on the second line with Kotkaniemi and whomever.
In this interview, Brind’Amour also squashed the idea that they may try Jarvis out at second line center and I must say I agree. Why mess with this player? Jarvis led the team with 32 goals in 73 games last season.
It looks like they will go with Kotkaniemi or perhaps give Logan Stankoven a shot at second line center.
The acquisition of Nikolaj Ehlers makes Svechnikov’s placement a little complicated. Most predictions have the newbie on the first line.
We will see as I’m sure there will be plenty of movement on the lines coming up.
Next up, we will have discussion about the defensive pairings.