Lining Up – Top Lines for the Sharks, Oilers, Sabres, and More – October 30

In this week’s installment, I’ll be predicting which lines will score the most from Tuesday October 30^th to the end of the fantasy week on Sunday November 4^th. We’re taking a break from the usual format that thoroughly analyzes a couple of line combinations, and will instead conduct a brief overview of a few lines. Using Dobber’s Line Production Tool, I compiled a list of the highest scoring line for each team at even strength over their past three games. Here’s the list…

Team	Line	Points
Anaheim	Pontus Aberg – Ryan Getzlaf – Rickard Rakell	3
Arizona	Brendan Perlini – Derek Stepan – Christian Fischer	9
Boston	Brad Marchand – Patrice Bergeron – David Pastrnak	3
Buffalo	Jeff Skinner – Jack Eichel – Jason Pominville	9
Carolina	Micheal Ferland – Sebastian Aho – Teuvo Teravainen	6
Columbus	Artemi Panarin – Pierre-Luc Dubois – Cam Atkinson	9
Calgary	Garnet Hathaway – Sean Monahan – Dillon Dube	2
Chicago	Brandon Saad – Artem Anisimov – Patrick Kane	7
Colorado	Gabriel Landeskog – Nathan MacKinnon – Mikko Rantanen	6
Dallas	Jason Dickinson – Jason Spezza – Blake Comeau	3
Detroit	Andreas Athanasiou – Frans Nielsen – Thomas Vanek	3
Edmonton	Alex Chiasson – Leon Draisaitl – Tobias Rieder	4
Florida	Jonathan Huberdeau – Vincent Trocheck – Mike Hoffman	3
Los Angeles	Trevor Lewis – Adrian Kempe – Ilya Kovalchuk	3
Minnesota	Mikael Granlund – Nino Niederreiter – Eric Staal – Jason Zucker	3
Montreal	Jonathan Drouin – Max Domi – Artturi Lehkonen	7
New Jersery	Taylor Hall – Nico Hischier – Kyle Palmieri	9
Nashville	Filip Forsberg – Ryan Johansen – Viktor Arvidsson	9
Islanders	Anders Lee – Brock Nelson – Josh Bailey	9
Rangers	Pavel Buchnevich – Brett Howden – Vladislav Namestnikov	4
Ottawa	Mikkel Boedker – Matt Duchene – Colin White	4
Philadelphia	Travis Konecny – Nolan Patrick – Jakub Voracek	2
Pittsburgh	Carl Hagelin – Evgeni Malkin – Phil Kessel	9
San Jose	Tomas Hertl – Logan Couture – Timo Meier	7
St. Louis	David Perron – Ryan O’Reilly – Zach Sanford	6
Tampa Bay	Steven Stamkos – Brayden Point – Nikita Kucherov	3
Toronto	Par Lindholm – John Tavares – Mitchell Marner	3
Vancouver	Markus Granlund – Bo Horvat – Tim Schaller	2
Vegas	William Carrier – Pierre-Edouard Bellemare – Ryan Reaves	3
Winnipeg	Nikolaj Ehlers – Mark Scheifele – Blake Wheeler	3
Washington	Alex Ovechkin – Nicklas Backstrom – T.J. Oshie	6

Jeff Skinner – Jack Eichel – Jason Pominville

Buffalo faces Calgary on the second half of a back-to-back, followed by a home-and-home with the Senators, and finally a showdown with the Rangers. The Flames allow the most high-danger chances in the league per 60 minutes (15.1), with the Rangers (5^th most at 13.23) and Senators (11^th at 11.67) are not too far behind.

Through just 49:18 of ice-time as a trio, Skinner, Eichel, and Pominville have seven goals for and just one against. They have an impressive Corsi For % of 59.60 and are generating twice as many high-danger scoring chances as they are allowing (15 to 7). They’ve been extremely hot this past week, and I expect them to continue that trend this week against a few favorable opponents.

Artemi Panarin – Pierre-Luc Dubois – Cam Atkinson

If Columbus wasn’t taking on a weak Detroit team on Tuesday, I probably wouldn’t have included this one. It also helps that they’re one of only five teams to play four games this week (the rest play three or fewer). The Blue Jackets close out the week with the dreaded California road trip – a trip that has become much less intimidating now that the Kings and Ducks are struggling.

While this line hasn’t been outscoring their opponents by a large margin (seven goals for and six against), they have been generating more scoring chances (58 for to 31 against). Artemi Panarin has 15 points in 10 games to start the season, Cam Atkinson has 11 and Pierre-Luc Dubois has 7.

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Connor McDavid – Kailer Yamamoto

Look, I know that predicting Connor McDavid will score a lot isn’t exactly a bold prediction. In fact, it seems sort of safe. However, I promise that my logic for picking this line goes beyond the presence of McDavid. Edmonton plays three games this week, and two of those games are against teams on the second half of a back-to-back. I know it’s early in the season, so some might argue that fatigue isn’t a very important factor at the tail end of a back-to-back. But even if that were the case (which I don’t think it is), the real gem here is that Edmonton will probably be facing back-up goalies on two occasions this week. Who would those back-up goalies be? Alex Stalock and, wait for it, Cam Ward. To cap it off, the Oilers close out the week against a poor Detroit team. That’s three favorable matchups for a very talented line, so I’m thinking they put some points.

The numbers don’t reveal anything too impressive about this trio. Their Corsi is below average at 47.54 %, and they’ve scored as many goals as they’ve allowed (1). While they’ve also created as many scoring chances as they’ve allowed (28), they have been creating better scoring chances than their opponents. 14 of their chances have been of the high-danger variety, compared to just five from the opposition. Their on-ice shooting percentage of 2.33, should see improvement this week.

Evander Kane – Joe Pavelski – Kevin Labanc

The San Jose Sharks play three games this week, and all three of those games are against teams that struggle to keep the puck out of their own net. They kick off the week on Tuesday with a matchup against the Rangers, who average 3.45 goals against per game (10^th most in the league). On Thursday, they take on the Blue Jackets, a team averaging 3.80 GA/game (5^th most). I’m actually surprised Columbus is so high on this list. They have a solid defensive core and a really good goalie in Sergei Bobrovsky – who should rebound from his early-season struggles. Finally, the Sharks close out the week on Saturday against a team that allows the most goals per game – the Philadelphia Flyers (4.18 GA/game).

I know the hot line in San Jose has been the Tomas Hertl – Logan Couture – Timo Meier line. Heck, Meier is riding an eight-game point streak and each member of the trio is currently above a point per game pace. However, this week I’m betting on Joe Pavelski to improve on the five points he has tallied in 11 games to start the season. The Kane-Pavelski-Labanc trio sports an impressive 63.16 Corsi For %, and they’ve had better scoring chances than their opponents (22 high-danger chances for, 13 against). I expect their on-ice shooting percentage of 5.77 to improve this week.