Kahun back with McDavid: When it comes to the forward line blender, Tippett slices and dices with the best of them

This in from the Edmonton Oilers, new line combinations, with the DYNamite Line of Leon Draisaitl, Kailer Yamamoto and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins reunited, William Lagesson paired with Adam Larsson, and Dominik Kahun on the same line as Connor McDavid and Jesse Puljujarvi.

This from Oilers play-by-play ace Jack Michaels:

Practice today (minus P. Russell & Kulikov)…

Kahun-McDavid-Puljujarvi

RNH-Draisaitl-Yamamoto

Ennis/Neal-McLeod-Chiasson

Shore-Khaira-Archibald

Nurse-Barrie

Lagesson-Larsson

Jones-Bear

Koekkoek-Bouchard

My take

1.  When it comes to blendering up the forward lines, Edmonton Oilers coach Dave Tippett is now slicing and dicing with the best of them. Of course, this is garbage time for the Oilers’ season where they’re unlikely to move up or down the standings. They’re playing out the string until the playoffs, striving to remain both healthy but also sharp and competitive at the same time. They’re playing what amounts to Exhibition games-plus. It’s a good time to experiment with forward lines and Tippett is taking advantage of that fact, changing up the lines every few games.

2. It’s hard to judge each line over a short amount of time but that’s all Tippett has to go on at this point, these small amounts of time each trio has been together. What we see is that this year the most productive line has been Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Kailer Yamamoto, which in 134 minutes together has scored 12 goals and given up just two. That’s out-of-this-world production, even better than what we saw from the DYNamite Line last year, when RNH, Draisaitl and Yamamoto scored 30 goals and gave up just nine.

3. The problem with the Oil’s most successful line is that it sees McDavid and Draisaitl combining well, but it’s likely that success in the playoffs will be predicated on having McDavid and Draisaitl leading their own lines, delivering that kind of one-two punch. Tippett has searched for an effective second line this year. He found it last year with the DYNamites, but that same line hasn’t done so well together so far this year, with three goals for and five against in 81 minutes. But, again, that’s a small sample size, and some of those minutes came when RNH was just back from a concussion. It’s a shrewd move to go back to the line now to see if it can again function at a high level.

4. I also like the line of McDavid, Puljujarvi and Kahun, a trio which has had some success in the smallest of samples, with three goals for and just one against in 35 minutes. Kahun loves to pass the puck and Puljujarvi is progressing as a shooter and passer. Both are solid enough defensively. I also like the line because it puts Puljujarvi in a more prominent spot, becoming the primary sniper. I have high hopes for this line.

5. In recent games, Tippett tried out Kahun, RNH and Yamamoto. They played together 58 minutes and worked some tricky passing plays but didn’t score much, just one goal, while giving up two. The line did have some good moments against the Canucks, but I doubt that a trio of three smaller players will have much success in the heavy slogging of the playoffs.

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