What Does David Legwand Do For The Ottawa Senators Depth Chart

Yesterday’s signing of veteran free agent David Legwand to a 2 year, $6M contract might not be earth-shattering, but it does give coach Paul MacLean some options when filling out his Senators Depth Chart on a nightly basis.

While the top end talent might not be among the best in the league, the top 3 lines should all be able to contribute on any given night and should be a balanced, scoring by committee group.

So here, line by line, would be my lineup configuration given the current roster.

LINE 1

Clarke MacArthur – Kyle Turris – Mark Stone

This unit finished the season together after the injury to Bobby Ryan and meshed pretty well.  The chemistry between Turris and MacArthur was great last season and it didn’t matter much who played on the other wing.  Stone is still developing and will be a solid fit with that pair.

LINE 2

Bobby Ryan – David Legwand – Curtis Lazar

This line should provide enough insulation so that if an opposing team puts all their efforts in stopping the first line that this unit can do some damage. A couple of veterans combined with a very promising rookie who needs to play and play important minutes as his quick development progresses.

LINE 3

Milan Michalek – Mika Zibanejad – Alex Chiasson

Michalek provides the veteran presence on this line with a couple of essentially second year players.  This should be a hard line to play against if Zibanejad can develop his power game and translate it to both ends of the ice.

LINE 4

Colin Greening/Mike Hoffman – Zack Smith – Chris Neil/Erik Condra

This line is pretty much a mashup of the remaining players that should be on the roster.  On any given night it should be Greening -Smith – Neil as they formed a pretty solid trio, but it would be tough to keep Condra in the press box waiting for an injury or a chance to play.

So the Senators will be a deep forward group that should have some balance, even if there won’t be any players among the league leaders in points they could be a unit that has offense from any number of different sources.

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Now this is how I would do it, and I have no doubt MacLean has different ideas based on his previous deployment of players, his affinity for Smith and the apparent lust to play Greening in a top 6 role to justify his contract.

How would you set up the forward lines?