Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Who Sits?

Rick Carpiniello at the Rangers Report expands on Steve Zipay's post on which Ranger sits if Sean Avery is back in the line-up tomorrow against the Capitals...

1) Aaron Voros. Perhaps. But the fourth line has been fairly effective so far, and I don’t think Avery will play on a fourth line, and I doubt that anybody Avery would bump down to the fourth line would give that threesome the same characteristics.

2) Brian Boyle. See No. 1. Plus he kills penalties.

3) Donald Brashear. Yeah, right. Not at $1.4 million, and not against his old team.

4) Enver Lisin. Maybe. Avery could slip seemlessly into the third line wing spot. Lisin hasn’t been bad enough to deserve a demotion, but Avery does bring something extra.

5) Ales Kotalik. Not going to happen. Too important to the team, too much of an investment, the coach likes him, and he’s become critical to the power play as a point-launcher.

6) Artem Anisimov. I suppose, if Anisimov is scratched, Vinny Prospal could slip down to play third-line center and Avery could move to the first line. Or Avery could play on the second line and somebody else move up to Prospal’s spot on the left of Brandon Dubinsky and Marian Gaborik … if Tortorella wants to break up the top line’s chemistry.

...i'm still with Zipay on sitting Lisin. Instead of jumbling all the lines it seems so much easier to just replace Lisin with Avery. Avery is more of a third line player and its not like the current third line has been clicking.