Watching the Pittsburgh Penguins in the playoffs last season, a lot of hockey fans came to realize how important it is to spread the wealth of offense across all four lines. Especially when a team gets into the playoffs, the top two lines of each team typically cancel each other out, and the bottom six are what make the difference.
In 2014-15, the Lightning saw this in the Stanley Cup Finals as the Triplets were neutralized by Tyler Johnson’s broken wrist. The bottom six couldn’t get the job done and the Lightning fell in six games. In the 2015-16 playoffs, the Penguins had at least one star on each of their top three lines and also added scoring from Matt Cullen’s fourth line — not even factoring in the scoring that came from the blue line.