Minnesota Wild: Fourth Line Deserving Of More Ice Time?

The Minnesota Wild fourth line was one of the few high points of their recent shoot-out loss to the Vegas Golden Knights. Do they deserve a little more ice time?

Between them, the fourth line trio of Marcus Foligno, Eric Fehr and Matt Hendricks logged an average of about 8 minutes each for the Minnesota Wild’s last game.

However, when they were on the ice, they managed to maintain possession and be generally positive, unlike most of their teammates, who need to learn a little about possession.

Now, we should take all of this a little for granted given they were facing the likes of Ryan Reaves, clearly the fourth line of the opposition.

However, the sheer fact that between them they were able to hem their opposing line into their defensive zone speaks at least a little to them playing well.

With the Minnesota Wild fourth line on the ice, the Golden Knights were only able to generate 2 shots on net, of which only one could be classified as a scoring chance.

By comparison, the fourth line themselves put five shots on net, including one that was viewed as a high danger opportunity.

Add to that, the trio was all above 50% Corsi For during their ice time and it’s blatant, statistically at least, that they deserve at least another couple of minutes ice time.

Given the struggles of the new-look third line and lack of scoring being generating in the top half of the line-up, there’s worse things Bruce Boudreau could do for the Minnesota Wild than bump his fourth line’s minutes up a little.

Is there really such a high risk, especially this early in the year, to sending them over the boards for two or three extra shifts as a reward?

Maybe the fact that they were taking away the bigger names’ ice-time would be enough to light a bit of a fire under guys like Jason Zucker or Joel Eriksson Ek.

Maybe it’s exactly what they need to spur them on.

Either way, I don’t see it as a bad idea to reward players that, at least on paper, are out working some of their higher paid peers.

Statistics courtesy of Natural Stat Trick.