Faceoffs - The Best and Worst Since the Lockout

They did play the 3rd line the majority of the year, but that was primarily due to the number of injuries the Wings had. Specifically, the long term injury to Franzen effectively meant that for the majority of the year, most of their wingers had to either get a bump up to a different line or take on tougher competition than Babcock would prefer. Once Franzen came back, they really reduced Draper’s minutes. Of the forwards who played more than 3 games in the playoffs, he and Abdelkader were the only ones who were on the ice for less than 8 minutes at ES, and they sheltered Draper by giving him a lot of offensive zone draws. He still played some with Helm and Eaves, but lines are pretty fluid. For example, Holmstrom plays on a scoring line with Datsyuk, but they only use him in specific situations and monitor his minutes at ES. As the puck is heading toward the defensive end of the rink, he will often change on the fly with a more defensively responsible player like Dan Cleary. If one would only say that Holmstrom plays on the 1st line at ES, then that would leave out a lot of valuable information about his actual role on the team.

With Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen, Filppula, Cleary, Bertuzzi, Holmstrom, Hudler and Modano, the top 9 is pretty much set. Lines will vary throughout the year as they do have a lot of options, but those guys are virtually guaranteed to be placed into scoring line roles on one of the first 3 lines.

And, the bottom line guys are set to be 3 of Helm, Abdelkader, Eaves, Miller and Draper (or Ritola if he’s kept). Helm, Eaves and Miller all play on the PK and have a specific role they can play. They talked all summer about giving Abdelkader a bigger opportunity and about how much they value his physicality. Or, in Jim Nill’s words, his “unique skill set.” Given that his faceoffs were drastically reduced, he doesn’t PK anymore and gets soft minutes, Draper differs from those guys b/c he doesn’t really have a defined role on the team.

I would expect Helm and Abdelkader to be given priority as both will draw a lot of penalties to set up a pretty gifted PP (although, Abdelkader will take his fair share, as well), and they have talked about possibly giving Abdelkader a role on the PK. Then, I think it would be a battle between Miller and Eaves for the last spot on the line, as both could also play on the PK. I think there will also be a shift, and they are going to rely on those guys to eat up a lot of the defensive zone faceoffs that the team has, so they can give their 3 scoring lines as many easy situations as they can as a way to exploit the other team.

This post turned out really long, But, basically, Miller, Helm and Eaves were each relied on more last year than Draper and Nill and Holland talked up Abdlekader all summer. Given that, I don’t see where or why Draper would play all that much. There will be injuries throughout the year and he’ll fill in when those pop up. But, otherwise, I’d expect them to go with a youth movement and phase Draper out of the lineup.