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The art of matching lines hits its peak in the playoffs. That is when coaches play chess and often win or lose a series with their strategy.
"Whatever coach is paying the most attention and whatever lines are paying the most attention are going to benefit from it," says Devils checking-line center John Madden, who has spent most of his career watching for an opposition's top offensive line to take the ice so he can go out and keep it from scoring.
Matching lines means when one set of forwards is out for one team, the opposition sends out a specific group of players -- sometimes a forward line, sometimes two defensemen, sometimes the group of five. The home team can make the final change during a stoppage. The matchups create great individual contests that help determine the outcome of the team game.
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"Certainly, it can have a big effect on a series," says Lorne Henning,
who helped the Islanders win four Stanley Cups and helped the Mighty Ducks get
to the Cup finals in 2003 as an assistant coach. "When I played, the Rangers
matched up against (Bryan) Trottier in '79 and shot him down. The Islanders
learned a lot from that series -- not to put all our eggs in one basket."
When it comes to one team matching up against a top offensive line, a coach can take two strategies. He can send out his best checking line or his top offensive line. The idea behind the latter is that the top offensive lines aren't as good defensively, making them more prone to giving up scoring chances.
It's the coach's job to set the matchups and the players' job to get themselves on and off the ice at the right times when strict matchups are in place.
"I'm pretty much looking for my own guy, when he stands up, sits down, the whole thing," says Madden, who was matched against Michal Handzus' line in the first round against the Flyers. "I look at the bench. I watch video, too, and I notice how one line will follow another line. You just kind of get a feeling when he's going to come. It's not hard to figure out. If you're not looking for it, though, you can get caught off guard."
Getting caught off guard can create the split-second gap that springs the opposing talent for a goal. The focus must be intense for a team that matches strictly. Brian Gionta, a teammate of Madden's, has been on both sides, as a checking winger and a first-line winger.
"As the offensive line, if you take care of your own end, get the puck and break out quickly, it discourages their checking line," Gionta says. "By experience being on a checking line, I know when you get it in deep and they get it right out on you, you're always backchecking, and it gets frustrating."
When the checking line is able to shut down the opposition's big offensive stars, the outcome of a series is often determined. If that team can't find secondary scoring, it'll find itself heading home.
Sometimes a line match will be consistent throughout a series. But sometimes it changes, and those adjustments can make or break a series. For instance, in the first round, Islanders coach Steve Stirling wanted center Michael Peca and his linemates out against Tampa Bay's top scorer, Martin St. Louis. For Games 1 and 2, in which the Islanders outplayed the Lightning and split the games, St. Louis was on a line with center Vincent Lecavalier -- and was always out against Peca. But for Game 3, Lightning coach John Tortorella moved St. Louis to a different line, forcing the Islanders to concentrate on shutting down an extra line. Peca stuck with St. Louis, and center Dave Scatchard's line had to shut down Lecavalier. But Tortorella, whose team won the Series, 4-1, had other plans.
He wanted Lecavalier to have more offensive chances, so whenever Islanders top center Alexei Yashin took the ice, Tortorella sent out Lecavalier's line to take advantage of that line, which is more likely to make defensive mistakes. When the Lightning got up 2-0 in Game 3 (it won 3-0), Tortorella stopped the quick changes.
"They don't care about the matchups now," one Eastern Conference scout observed at the time. "They just need to protect the lead and not make mistakes."
Mistakes, such as a bad change creating an odd-man rush for the Islanders. Or perhaps a penalty for having too many men on the ice -- the Stars received one in each of their losses to the Avalanche in Games 1 and 2, starting Colorado toward a series victory. In those games, the Stars also had a bad matchup: Pierre Turgeon against the Avalanche's Peter Forsberg. For Games 3 and 4, Stars coach Dave Tippett got Mike Modano out against Forsberg, and the results were more favorable -- a split -- for Dallas.
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Those are the adjustments. This is the strategy. Then again, some coaches don't pay attention to any of it.
Maple Leafs coach Pat Quinn, for one, is not a matchup guy. The Senators sent out defensemen Zdeno Chara and Chris Phillips every time center Mats Sundin's line hit the ice, and Quinn made no effort to change the lines to get Sundin away from them.
The Blues made sure defenseman Chris Pronger was on the ice whenever Sharks offensive star Patrick Marleau took a shift. Sharks coach Ron Wilson, like Quinn, likes to "roll four lines," but he doesn't ignore matchups completely. Much like the Pronger-Marleau matchup, Wilson sends out specific defensemen against the opposition's forwards so he doesn't disrupt the flow of his forwards.
"He tries to match them up against forwards more than he does with the forwards," Sharks winger Todd Harvey says. "We have four lines that can go out and play against almost anybody, from top line to the fourth line."
Flyers coach Ken Hitchcock, a student of strategy who matched strictly in his successful years with the Stars, says the first-round series against the Devils wasn't about getting each matchup exactly right.
"I don't really care," Hitchcock said in the middle of the first round of the series his team won, 4-1. "We're not a good team flying guys on and off the ice, getting this matchup or that matchup. Some teams are good that way. We're a team that the five guys who go on the ice, let's play. If I don't get the right matchup, the guys on the ice have to play.
"I've coached other teams that are better on strict matchups, but this is a team where the players that go on the ice don't want to come off the ice. They're a very proud group on each line, and they don't like to be pulled off thinking they can't play against a line."
That statement is partially true (anything Hitchcock says during the playoffs has that potential). Before Game 4 against the Devils, he did change his forward lines to give them a little jump and to mess up Devils coach Pat Burns' matchups. Hitchcock would not allow a detrimental matchup to continue.
Philadelphia, however, remained reluctant to change on the fly because the Flyers are successful forecheckers. In a recent USA Today story, former coach Scotty Bowman said that if a team matches and forechecks well, the opposition can negate the forechecking by forcing it to change frequently to match. Following that reasoning, Hitchcock didn't want to lose a huge part of his game. Confident that the players on the ice could handle the opposition's players, he didn't.
That led to less harried changes and good flow. It kept the Flyers forechecking fiercely. It was the best of both worlds for Hitchcock -- beneficial matchups without having to disrupt the style of play. It doesn't often work that way. Adjustments get made. Strategy is altered. This is when many coaches make their money, and players had better be aware.
"The key is
to pay attention," Madden says. "If you don't do that, you're going
to be in trouble."