Defend This

Roman Josi–Shea Weber (Nashville) – Mostly thanks to Nashville's weekend in Southern California, Roman Josi and Shea Weber led the way with seven points as a pairing in Week 13. Were you really surprised? Josi had all four points in the two games and Weber had two of his three points. The Predators wound up with three out of four points in what could be considered a back to back that was truly out of this world.

Cody Franson–Dion Phaneuf (Toronto) – If only this pairing could find ways to play better defensively more consistently, then just imagine what they could do. They killed it together for seven points as a duo. The funnier part is that Dion Phaneuf led these two with four points. That is not a misprint. The problem is the defensive part of the game as Toronto continues to get bludgeoned on scoring chances and shots. However, for most fantasy purposes, if you get several special teams points from the pairing, can you really complain? That is the tough part. For fantasy, it is great. For the Maple Leafs, it is becoming a nightmare yet again.

Alec Martinez–Drew Doughty (Los Angeles) – They were here a few weeks ago only to return with six more points on their ledger. With the wild game against Nashville and the comeback against Vancouver, that is where the points came from here with Alec Martinez and Drew Doughty. Keep in mind that Doughty plays in all situations and led the league in average time on ice with 29:34 a night last week and 3:37 of power play time. Yet Martinez had four points to Doughty's three. That is sometimes how it works but Doughty is the clear catalyst.

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As always you can follow me @ChrisWasselTHW and thanks for reading. See you next week with four more line combination and three pairings for "Between The Lines".