If there's one thing you can take from last night's game against the Senators, other than the win, two points and another great performance form Marc-Andre Fleury in net, it's that the Penguins' depth is really coming up big. At times I feel a lot of teams going up against the Pens think there are really two keys to victory. 1) Shut down Crosby and Malkin and 2) Rough them up. Tyler Kennedy proved #1 wrong last night and the previous wins over Toronto and Philly put #2 to rest as well. As evidenced from Pittsburgh's 5-1 record it's not nearly that simple. After the jump, let's take a look at how each line is performing as just one of the four pistons driving this offense.
Chris Kunitz (0g-3a) - Sidney Crosby (4g-1a) - Bill Guerin (2g-2a)
Combined: 6 goals, 6 assists, 12 pts
Ruslan Fedotenko (1g-2a) - Evgeni Malkin (2g-5a) - Jordan Staal (3g-1a)
Combined: 6 goals, 8 assists, 14 pts
Matt Cooke (1g, 2a) - Tyler Kennedy (4g, 1a) - Pascal Dupuis(0g, 0a)
Combined: 5 goals, 3 assists, 8 pts
Michael Rupp (0g, 1a) - Eric Godard (0g, 0a) -Caig Adams (0g, 2a)
Combined: 0 goals, 3 assists, 3 pts and 38 PIM
Admittedly you can't expect big numbers from the fourth line. And frankly I didn't even know where to place Pascal Dupuis since opening lines often show him on the second but he slowly makes his way down to the third and sometimes the fourth as the game progresses. So mix him in wherever you like, but it hardly changes things. I will say though, if you keep the third line of Cooke, Kennedy and Staal intact as it's often written on paper (although in last night's Staal goal he was on ice with Rupp and Adams), they are tied with Line 1 for top-scoring line on the team. To get that production from your third line speaks volumes about this team.
I don't think it's healthy to ask whether it's worth mixing these lines up just yet. After all, there really is no reason to risk either line's chemistry.
Have you been happy with the looks of these lines so far? Is there anything you think the Penguins can afford to change for the better without risking it all as a whole? Let's see what you guys and gals have to say.