The line the Montreal Canadiens must watch out for against Pittsburgh
By Omar L
The trio has played 47 games together (426.5 total minutes) and became one of the best shutdown lines in the league. Their line is top-five in expected goals against per 60 at 1.46 (via MoneyPuck). The other four lines ahead of them are the Casey Cizikas lines from the New York Islanders, the Jordan Staal line in Carolina and the Joel Eriksson Ek line in Minnesota.
The difference, however, is that neither of those four lines played as many minutes together as Tanev-Blueger-Aston-Reese. With sample size in mind, they get the edge as being the best defensive line in hockey.
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They don’t generate much offence actual scoring, but they generate a lot of chances and prevent a lot more, which is what you would expect to see from a line such as this. It’s also important to notice that Aston-Reese and his physical play is a key contributor. Without him, the line’s offensive generation plummets.
Additionally, it’s not as if they’re getting lucky here. Their PDO of 0.999 at 5v5 suggests they’re exactly where they’re meant to be (via Natural Stat Trick). That’s all without being sheltered in the slightest as Mike Sullivan trusts them with hard assignments.
Claude Julien has to keep them in mind when planning.
If he wants to match fourth line for fourth line, then that would see Jake Evans, Jordan Weal and Dale Weise going up against them. This trio has barely played any games together, but Evans has considerable experience with Weise playing a total of 59 minutes with him. Unfortunately, they were leakier when paired together with below 50% ratings in Corsi-for but generated a decent amount of scoring chances.