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Should Alex Steeves stay on Bruins’ top line? | The Skate Pod, Ep. 507



Discussing the contributions of Alex Steeves, Morgan Geekie, Pavel Zacha and Joonas Korpisalo in the Bruins’ win over the St. Louis Blues. Plus, what Charlie McAvoy said about his injury and recovery. And a fashion segment about one of the worst uniforms in college hockey.

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Leave your questions in the comments and we will answer as many as we can!

Jump to:
00:00 – Questions surface about the Olympic rink in Milan
20:00 – Progress on the recovery of injured Bruins including McAvoy and Pastrnak
30:00 – Should the Geekie-Lindholm-Pasta line be put back together when Pastrnak returns?
41:00 – What the stats say about the Lohrei-Soderstrom pair
59:00 – Is Korpisalo better than what his stats say this season?
1:05:00 – Pavel Zacha’s contributions
1:10:00 – Will Quinn Hughes be traded before the Olympics? Fashion segment
1:20:00 – Charlie McAvoy speaks about his injury and recovery

Intro: Jake Zimmer

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8 Comments

  1. If Geekie was with any other team, most sports writers would be all over his scoring this year. But other than Boston media, you don't hear his name mentioned. Esp here in Canada.

  2. After the BC season ends and if Hagens turns pro, how about the forward lines go like this:
    1. Geekie E. Lindholm Pastrnak
    2. Mittelstadt Zacha Arvidsson
    3. Khusnutdinov Hagens Steeves
    4. Jeannot Minten Kastelic

    Alternates: Kuraly, Eyssimont

    This would keep skilled guys like Koosie and Steeves off the 4th line, and take some of the pressure off of the Minten line. You should get more scoring with the new 3rd line vs the current Kuraly line, plus the minutes played per line could be much more balanced which would be a plus with the condensed schedule.

    Comments?

  3. Bruins Line Combos when 100% healthy:

    Geekie Zacha Pasta
    Steeves Middlestadt Arvidsson
    Jennot Minten Kastelic
    Khusy E. Lindholm Eysimont (Lysell)

    The Bruins, even when healthy, are not a good 5×5 team

    Thus, it seems beyond dumb that they would or should drop Alex Steeves into a limited minutes, 4th line role with turds who can’t produce anything offensively

    The Bruins have to start considering putting together a lineup that can generate the most 5×5 offense possible while also not torpedoing them defensively

    As for the First Line: Geekie is not a distributor of the puck, he is pure shooter, so is Pasta

    Thus, putting Elias Lindholm between Geekie & Pasta doesn't seem to make the most sense if they're really trying to maximize their 5×5 offense

    E. LIndholm is a lousy generator of 5×5 offense for both himself and for others, thus why on earth should they play him with their two best offensive wingers? Spoiler alert, they shouldn’t

    Zacha is their best distributor of the puck and with both Geekie and Pasta being more shoot-first players, to get the most out of all three, why not play them together? They should

    As for the Second Line:

    Steeves has been too good and he more than passes the eyeball test to relegate him to playing limited 4th line minutes with stiffs where they'll go back to getting next to nothing out of him

    After Pavel Zacha, Middlestadt is the Bruins next best center in terms of puck distribution, thus it makes sense that he should be the Bruins 2nd line center

    Arviddson is not going to play on the 3rd line and nothing about him says 4th liner

    As for scoring wings, once you get past Pasta and Geekie, the Bruins next best scoring wing is Arvidsson, so why shouldn’t he stay on the 2nd line? He should

    As for the Third Line:

    Again, it doesn’t seem like Sturm has much interest in changing the third line up and it’s been effective so far, so why make changes? They shouldn’t. So Jennot Minten Kastelic should continue to role

    As for the 4th line:

    The Bruins don’t have a real 4th line that has any semblance of a true identity

    Instead, their current 4th line is just a mish-mash of largely ineffective 5×5 players that don’t do anything particularly well

    Kuraly is useless at 5×5. He can’t skate, forecheck or backcheck while also being lousy offensively. I understand he plays on the PK but he’s not some world beater there that can't be replaced

    Instead of a 3rd line and a 4th line, the Bruins could deploy two 3rd lines with the second, 3rd line being Khushy E.Lindholm Essyimont (and I’d even promote Lysell to play RW on this new ā€œ3rd lineā€)

    You play the Jeannot Minten and Kasetelic third line a bit more when you’re either up on the scoreboard or you need a physical shift and you play the other 3rd line a bit more when you need more offense in Khusy E. Lindholm and either Eisymont or Lysell

    Of course they won’t demote E. Lindholm to a 4th line role even if they can legitimately pitch him he’s centering their new ā€œoffensive 3rd lineā€ so this is all 100% moo

    But what is Elias LIndholm at this point in his career?

    Is he a great offensive 5×5 player that scores a bunch at 5×5 while also being a line driver of offense and a puck distributor to others? Um, nope

    Is he a vey good center in term of faceoffs, penalty killing, 200 foot play & does he still have "some" offense to his game? Yes

    Based on this should Elias Lindholm be a Top 6 center or a a Bottom 6 center? The answer seems obvious but….

    This Bruins team desperately needs to generate far more offense at 5×5 and pushing Steeves to the bottom of the roster, trying to wedge a non offensive E. Lindholm into an offensive role with their best offensive players having turds like Kuraly stay in the lineup over guys with far more offensive upside like Khuusy all seems dumb and counter productive to more 5×5 offense…..

    Zero chance they'll even consider my proposed lines…. But they should

  4. Ln1: Pasta, Zacha, Arvy. Ln2: Geekie, Lindholm, Steeves. Ln3: Mittlestadt, Minten, Jeannot. Ln4: Kastelic, Kuraly, Eyssimont/Khusi

  5. Brian, you forgot to mention Jake Debrusk in your Skewering of The Vancouver Canucks, think he’s 3rd in scoring with 8 goals. Bring Back Jake 😊

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