{"id":315629,"date":"2025-10-19T09:11:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T09:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/315629\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T09:11:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T09:11:12","slug":"preview-lines-5-former-nhl-player-explains-graf-dellandrea-smith-benching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/315629\/","title":{"rendered":"Preview\/Lines #5: Former NHL Player Explains Graf-Dellandrea-Smith Benching"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What does Ryan Warsofsky mean by \u201cwinning hockey\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>A lot of San Jose Sharks fans were upset after the head coach benched the Collin Graf-Ty Dellandrea-Will Smith line for the last 6:29 of the first period, after this Nick Schmaltz goal, which made it Utah Mammoth 2-0.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\ud83d\udea8\ud83d\udea8SCHMALTZY FOR TWO! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/3nKnI5TPs7\">pic.twitter.com\/3nKnI5TPs7<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Utah Mammoth (@utahmammoth) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/utahmammoth\/status\/1979359821813158047?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">October 18, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Warsofsky explained after the game, \u201cWe don\u2019t have the puck, and they\u2019re leaving the zone. Can\u2019t play winning hockey that way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I asked an NHL scout and former player to elaborate what \u201cleaving the zone\u201d too early means.<\/p>\n<p>The obvious mistake was the Collin Graf (51) turnover that ended up on the stick of Schmaltz (8): \u201cDefinitely a miscommunication with Graf and Dmitry Orlov and the puck gets turned over.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, this scout was concerned about the less obvious, which is what Warsofsky emphasized.<\/p>\n<p>Watch Smith (2): \u201cThat\u2019s where Smith needs to be low and helping out where Schmaltz is until the puck is getting broken out,\u201d he said. \u201cNothing has been broken out at this point and he is flying out of the zone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The scout added, about Dellandrea (10): \u201cDellandrea can\u2019t be flying out either but really had no bearing on the play.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s worth noting too, much has been made online about Warsofsky \u201cpunishing\u201d youngsters and not veterans. Dellandrea, however, has six years and over 200 NHL games on his resume, and he was sat for as long as sophomore wingers Smith and Graf.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUltimately, Smith should be standing in the slot ready to help,\u201d the scout said.<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t, of course, to lay everything on Smith either. It\u2019s a team game, right?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGraf, Mario Ferraro, and Orlov should do a lot better to not let that puck get exposed to the middle ice,\u201d the scout said, even before Graf\u2019s gaffe.<\/p>\n<p>But philosophically, coaches generally have a bigger problem with forwards leaving the defensive zone without full possession of the puck, as opposed to losing corner battles (what happened to Ferraro and company), which happens.<\/p>\n<p>Think about it psychologically: Flying the zone without the puck means your team is cheating for offense, when yes, winning hockey is more about thinking defense first. That\u2019s a basic losing habit that must be broken<\/p>\n<p>The Dellandrea line was benched for just 6:29 of the first period, anyway.<\/p>\n<p>Big picture? Let\u2019s not worry about one benching or one period or one game. Let\u2019s see if Smith and Graf are better players by the end of the year. It\u2019s a long play, and both Smith and Graf improved immensely from the beginning of 2024-25 season, under Warsofsky, to the end.<\/p>\n<p>San Jose Sharks (0-2-2)<\/p>\n<p>Alex Nedeljkovic will draw the start.<\/p>\n<p>Warsofsky shared that Michael Misa will come in for Ryan Reaves. Here are some of the lines and pairings that he revealed:<\/p>\n<p>Gaudette-Celebrini-Skinner<br \/>Kurashev-Misa-Smith<\/p>\n<p>Ferraro-Orlov<br \/>Iorio-Leddy<br \/>Dickinson-Desharnais<\/p>\n<p>He mentioned that Ty Dellandrea will center the fourth line.<\/p>\n<p>Best guess?<\/p>\n<p>Eklund-Wennberg-Toffoli<br \/>Goodrow-Dellandrea-Graf<\/p>\n<p>As for the Sharks\u2019 many blueline injuries?<\/p>\n<p>Timothy Liljegren and John Klingberg (he was in Utah) should travel, Shakir Mukhamadullin is \u201cup in the air\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The Sharks head out tomorrow for a week-long trip to New York and Minnesota.<\/p>\n<p>Pittsburgh Penguins (3-2-0)<\/p>\n<p>Check out <a href=\"https:\/\/pittsburghhockeynow.com\/pittsburgh-penguins-game-6-lines-notes-how-to-watch-vs-san-jose-sharks-2025\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> lines at Pittsburgh Hockey Now!<\/p>\n<p>Where To Watch<\/p>\n<p>Puck drop between the San Jose Sharks and Pittsburgh Penguins is at 7 PM PT at SAP Center. Watch it live on NBC Sports California. Listen to it on the Sharks Audio Network.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What does Ryan Warsofsky mean by \u201cwinning hockey\u201d? A lot of San Jose Sharks fans were upset after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":315630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[88500,63473,1322,26797,293,4360,42930,1328,62,64481,67,132,68,5956],"class_list":{"0":"post-315629","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-2025-26","9":"tag-collin-graf","10":"tag-featured","11":"tag-lines","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-preview","14":"tag-ryan-warsofsky","15":"tag-san-jose-sharks","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-ty-dellandrea","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-will-smith"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115400060845797477","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}