Written By Tom Schreier
Before discussing the Wild line combinations, let’s begin with this: There is no secret number that is going to unlock Minnesota’s potential. This team is not a safe, so punching in 11-64-29, 22-56-3 and 26-9-16 isn’t magically going to turn Thomas Vanek into a 40-goal scorer this year and assure that Mikko Koivu finishes the year with 60 assists. Having said that, chemistry and matching skillsets goes a long way to improving the team as a whole, which should boost the numbers of individual players.
Finally, the focus here is on the top three lines. Yeo has been adamant that this team has three scoring lines and that he doesn’t really see them as First Line, Second Line or Third Line, but rather just three combinations that happen to work well together. Part of this is because he loves to change line combinations frequently throughout a season — or even during the middle of a game — but part of this is also the nature of the team. Right now he’s getting consistent production out of Zach Parise, but Jason Pominville and Vanek have become assist leaders among the forwards and Nino Niederreiter and Jason Zucker are doing the bulk of the scoring.
In order to avoid pigeonholing players, especially younger forwards like Zucker, Niederreiter and Charlie Coyle, thus limiting both their development and their ability to impact the game, he’s trying to put them in the best position to succeed. Obviously, if you want to know which players he’s playing the most, just add up their ice time. The key here is to discuss which players complement each other best, and because the focus here is on offensive production — or lack thereof — the first three lines will be discussed at the expense of the fourth line grinders.
What we know
There are many things that are difficult for the average fan to see. The Wild have advance scouts that can pinpoint strengths and weaknesses of players that the average person will not observe because, well, it’s their job to do so, and obviously Mike Yeo and his coaching staff have a better understanding of chemistry between his players because they see them interact behind closed doors: How they react to losses, who arrives together for the morning skate, internal bickering that takes place during times when the media is not present.
We do know a few things about players on this team, however, that can clue us in on which players play well together. We know that Vanek and Pominville played together in Buffalo beginning in the 2005-06 season until the 2012-13 season when Pominville was traded to Minnesota. Yahoo Sports facetiously reported Pominville’s contract extension with the Wild with the headline “Minnesota Wild sign Jason Pominville, friend of Thomas Vanek, to a 5-year extension.” As much as Pominville offers to the team — scoring, leadership, experience — it’s hard not to think general manager Chuck Fletcher had Vanek on his mind, knowing his team needed a pure goal-scorer, when No. 29 was signed.
Vanek scored 40 goals early in his Sabres career, at age 23 in 2006-07 and at age 25 in 2008-09, and has never scored less than 25 in a complete season. Pominville had 34 goals at age 24 in that amazing 2006-07 regular season for Buffalo and had two 30-goal seasons in Western New York before coming to St. Paul. He had 30 goals last season. Point is, Vanek and Pominville have played well together in the past.
We also know that Coyle and Zucker have a little bit of a bromance going. They share a three-bedroom apartment in Minneapolis together where they play ping-pong and video games together. They also work out and eat dinner together after practice. “They do everything together,” Erik Haula told Chad Graff of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. “It’s kind of weird.” Coyle and Zucker insist it’s a natural friendship.
They two of them have also played on the same line together, centered by Koivu, for parts of the season, and it has paid off. Zucker has gone from a tweener who spent a lot of time in Des Moines during the past two seasons to a bona fide NHL player, and the biggest critique of Coyle is that the coaching staff wants him to be meaner (seriously). Otherwise there’s few complaints about a player who has spent time with Parise and Koivu back when he was wearing No. 63 and has essentially been used as a jumper cable for struggling veterans this season. Want Koivu to get more assists? Put Coyle on his wing. Want Vanek to score more goals? Have Coyle center his line. Yeo’s car isn’t starting in the cold weather? Apply the red and black clamps to Coyle’s chest, turn the ignition switch and VROOM!
“We’ve never really given him a chance to get settled,” says Yeo of Coyle. “It seems like whenever we’re moving Charlie it’s not because his game’s not good enough or it’s not because of him, it seems like — it’s a real compliment to him — it’s because we need to get somebody else going, or we have to give somebody else an element that we thought that they needed.”
Even knowing what we do about the history between these two sets of players, there’s no saying that what’s best for two individual players is best for the whole team. Pominville established a strong rapport with Parise and Granlund last season, and even though that combination has been slowed down a bit this year, that’s probably one of the Wild’s most productive lines in the past few years. As much as Zucker and Coyle are buddies, Yeo might have to split them up occasionally in order to allow Coyle to assist other players who are struggling, and Zucker can be placed almost anywhere because he’s fast, can score and is not a liability defensively.
It’s easy to see why Yeo changes things up so often: There’s almost too many moving pieces because of all the talent on his team. In truth, sometimes these things can be over-thought; after all, even if a coach finds the perfect combination, things happen that get in the way of keeping those players together.
Nothing is permanent
Unfortunately for Zucker, Coyle and many other people in their 20s, life is not a video game: Players get hurt, get sick or have to leave the team for personal reasons. On top of that, there’s always call-ups and players that get sent down, and some line combinations need to be shaken up because one member is not performing or another player has gotten hot and needs more ice time.
It’s also possible that changing lines frequently, as Yeo is prone to do, improves team chemistry as a whole. If players get used to skating with the same teammates all the time, then they are not learning how to play with other players. This isn’t to say that teams should not have set lines, and honestly too much change might create confusion instead of chemistry, but there is a balance to be struck there. Also, just because Vanek and Pominville aren’t playing with each other right now, doesn’t mean they can’t pick up where they left off if they are paired with each other later, it’s not as though seven-and-a-half years of playing together suddenly goes away after a year or so apart, and rest assured that Coyle and Zucker will still be able to own online opponents in FIFA together after the game even if they aren’t linemates on the ice that night.
The search for the perfect line combination can lead a coach down the garden path. It seems like something worthy to spend time on, and in some sense it is, but at the end of the day lines are going to change anyways. When Parise got hurt, the team had to figure out a way to play without him. With Vanek off to a slow start, Niederreiter and Zucker had to step up as goal-scorers. If Koivu is having trouble setting up his teammates, Coyle and Haula have to be ready to step in and facilitate scoring. Even looking beyond the forwards, the team had to adjust to Keith Ballard, Marco Scandella and Jonas Brodin missing time because of the mumps — and who the hell thought that this team would suffer from an outbreak of the mumps?
Change is good, but eventually Yeo should find a couple of staples on which to fall back on. Inconsistency has plagued this team throughout the year, especially in the goal-scoring department. The power play’s sub-10 percent conversion rate is downright shameful considering how much talent is on this team. Vanek may be racking up assists, but he’s still a liability defensively and in the neutral zone and is not being paid $6.5 million to set up his teammates — that’s Koivu’s job. And, on that note, well, you get the picture.
Finding three line combinations he likes – and then discovering ways to subtly deviate from them – should be key to getting this team to play to its potential. Maybe Yeo will always be a coach who constantly changes lines to keep opponents guessing while trying to spark his players, and that’s his prerogative, but as the season goes on he’s learned a lot about each skater’s tendencies and has observed patterns. Over time, especially with many of his players locked into long-term contracts, you have to think things will stabilize a bit.
The rubik’s cube
The Wild’s best line combinations are probably 11-64-29, 22-56-3, 26-9-16. I know those nine numbers go against just about everything I’ve written so far: Parise, Granlund and Pominville are not clicking as consistently as they were last season, Vanek and Pominville are not reunited and Zucker and Coyle’s bromance is being put on hold. I like the 11-64-29, 22-56-3, 26-9-16 base combination, however, because it establishes a top line that has had success in the past, puts the team’s best young scorer and a developing player with one who appears to catalyze anyone he plays with and allows Vanek and Koivu to figure things out together while playing on the third line with Zucker who can use his speed to carry the puck across the neutral zone and appears capable of doing the heavy lifting in terms of goal-scoring if he has to.
The point of this is not to pretend that putting these players together is going to solve the Wild’s pressing issues; the point is to establish a template. Think putting Vanek and Pominville together will allow them to relive their glory days in Buffalo? Slide Coyle to the first line with Parise, where he’s played before, and Zucker to the second line with Niederreiter — putting both of the team’s best young goal-scorers together. Want to get Koivu up on that first line with Parise? Slide him forward, move Granlund to the second line with two of the team’s best scorers and have Haula develop alongside two players who have played with each other for years. Want to ignite the Zuckoyle bromance? Well, that’s complicated, but those things always are. I don’t know, move Coyle to center and make Haula play on their wing — he seems like the odd man out in that group anyways.
Instead of 11-64-29, 22-56-3, 26-9-16 being a magical code, this set of Wild line combinations becomes a rubik’s cube where Yeo just has to turn the pieces over and over again until the colors match. The funny thing about the NHL is that each player changes color throughout the season: sometimes they are red-hot, sometimes they are ice-cold and occasionally they just don’t match up with the players they did before. Still, turning a rubik’s cube is better than trying to put together a massive puzzle, and at times it appears like the Wild have been doing just that. After all, nobody has a concrete explanation as to why Koivu is suddenly having trouble setting other players up or how Vanek goes from a 30- to 40-goal scorer to one that appears to have trouble scoring 10 this year. And that power play? That’s a mystery that would befuddle Sherlock Holmes. Establishing chemistry during 5-on-5 play should go a long way to help that, however, because like with a real rubik's cube, figuring out the fourth side (i.e. the fourth line) becomes a bit easier when the other three are matching.
Tom Schreier can be heard on The Michael Knight Show from 2-3:00 on weekdays. He has written for Bleacher Report and the Yahoo Contributor Network. Follow him on Twitter @tschreier3.