Thread by @emanningwrites

I read Stu's column with some interest, because this theory--that it's the rolling of four lines that isn't working--is the opposite of my own inclination to think that rolling four lines *does* work for the #Habs, and getting away from it is what hurts.

So I ran the numbers...

https://twitter.com/StuCowan1/status/1360373095639449607

...and found something intriguing.

CAVEATS:

1. Very small sample size. 14 games, 8 wins, 4 losses, 2 OT losses.
2. Comparison can only involve even-strength times on ice. Special team usage in reg or OT by definition is not "rolling lines".
3. Game situations...

...will cloud the issues; a player may have a short TOI due to injury or illness, or a situation might lead to a player being on the ice longer than usual. These impacts would be mitigated in the stats if we had a lot more games to draw stats from.
4. Most importantly, all...

...we can do is show a correlation here; we can't imply causation at all, and I'm not trying to.

So, what I did was look at ESTOI of all forwards and note the difference in ice time between the most-used and least-used forward in each game (luckily, there are...

...lots of nice time calculators online because it takes forever to do this the old-fashioned way given the difficulties of working with units of time). Then I averaged those differences for wins and for losses. Since we're only looking at regulation ESTOI, I put regulation...

...losses and OT losses together.

When the Habs win, the average difference in ice time between the most-used and least-used forwards is 5:25.

When the Habs lose, the average difference in ice time between most and least-used Fs is 6:23, or about a minute more.

Is...

...this enough to matter? Like I said, we're not looking for a causation here; there are too many variables and not enough games to draw data from. But if the real reason the Habs have started to decline in offensive production and lose games was due to the...

..."Roll 4 lines" strategy, you would expect to see at least some indication that the Habs win more often when the ice times are unbalanced in favor of offence producers, and the data doesn't appear to suggest that at all.

It will be interesting to keep an eye on this!