Bringing Cole Caufield back: Tony Marinaro would play him on two lines

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Bringing Cole Caufield back: Tony Marinaro would play him on two lines
Credit: Capture d'écran Twitter

Cole Caufield has been struggling since the start of the playoffs. Our colleague Maxime Truman mentioned it this morning: #13's stats have been cause for concern for a while now.

And obviously, that's not ideal when you consider how important he is to the team's success.

As a result, everyone is currently throwing out ideas to try and get Caufield back on track. Beating Buffalo without his contribution will be difficult, so helping him get back on track is essential.

Tony Marinaro, who discussed all this on his Sick Podcast today, also threw out an idea… and this one is interesting: he'd like to see Caufield play on two different lines.

He wants to see him continue to get ice time on the first line… but also see him get some ice time on other lines to throw the Sabres off balance.

We know that opposing teams don't play the same way against Nick Suzuki's line as they do against Phillip Danault's, for example. And sending Caufield out to play a shift with another line every now and then could give him a different look.

Sending him out for a few shifts with Ivan Demidov, another guy who's still finding his footing, could also be interesting.

We saw late in the series against the Lightning that Martin St-Louis wasn't afraid to shake up his lines repeatedly. It's still early in this series to change everything, let's be clear… but Marinaro's idea isn't crazy and deserves consideration.

The Habs want to give their top line every chance to find solutions… but sooner or later, the team won't have the luxury of being patient: this is a card up their sleeve that they can then play.


In a nutshell

– Zachary Bolduc is having a great playoff run.

– What do you think?

– I like that.

– LPHF: Here are the four cities expected to host a new team.

– One to watch.

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