Deep squads playing ‘tug of war’

WINNIPEG — Whenever there’s an advantage to be gained from it, of course the men behind the bench are going to try to exploit it.

But during the early stages of the series between the Winnipeg Jets and Nashville Predators, there hasn’t been as much of the hard line matching or shadowing as one might expect during the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The reason for that is relatively simple.

“We both have slightly different systems, but almost identical attitudes of how the game is supposed to be played,” said Jets head coach Paul Maurice. “It’s a hard-gap game. Neither team is looking to give ice. With the style of play, there’s a cost to it. You’ve got to run your bench.

“This just truly is a tug of war here. Set your feet hard and start pulling.”

Both Maurice and Predators head coach Peter Laviolette are not afraid to roll four lines either, so that obviously is a factor.

“There are a lot of similarities. When the identities are the same, you either switch your identity or play to your identity and both of us are trying to play to our identity right now,” Laviolette said. “We’ve got good balance and good depth on our lines and (Maurice) probably feels the same way. It’s not something new for us. If Ryan Johansen is against the third line or a checking line, we’re OK with that. If the other coach decides they want to match up head-to-head with Ryan Johansen’s line, we’re fine with that too. It doesn’t matter to us which way it goes. We’re comfortable either way. Just a lot of trust in the balance of our lineup.”

The same goes for how Maurice is willing to use Mark Scheifele’s line against either the top offensive unit from their opponent or the checking groups.

“My sense of the matchup is this: you have your idea of what the matchup is supposed to look like and if it’s not looking the way you want, you change the matchup,” said Maurice. “You’re not chasing the other group.”