Depth players are plentiful, but choosing the correct ones to fill out your roster can be the difference between a long playoff run, and an early vacation. Halfway into the season, up moderately close to the salary cap ceiling, its becoming clearer that external help probably wont be coming anytime soon. The Bruins will have to muddle through with what they have, and selecting the best possible lineup with the limited resources they have often times becomes a place for coaches to play "their guys" sometimes at the expense of younger, better players.

Looking at a few examples by Domenic Galamini (@MimicoHero) of evaluating players without their names or numbers attached to them, as well as more formally by Lyle Kossis (@LyleKossis) at Pensburgh

Using a variety of results based stats (Goals, assists, and points, all changed to a rate stat to account for ice time discrepancies, as well as time on ice) and process based stats such as Score Adjusted Corsi For % (SACF%), Scoring Chance % (More writing on that here), and delta Corsi. All of these stats are from 5 on 5 play only, so more time on the penalty kill wont change their numbers at all. Delta Corsi is a form of corsi that adjusts raw Corsi based on a number of various other factors such as team, age, zone starts, the quality of their teammates, as well as the quality of the opposition. I included the past 3 years numbers as a rate stat, and then to make it somewhat easier to compare them, I averaged them. Enough talking, LETS GET RANKING!

Forwards:

Here are the 5 forward selections: A. B. C, D, and E. All five have played on the fourth line at some point this year, and going forward let's choose three of them to play on the fourth line.

Defenseman:

Here are the 7 defenseman: F, G, H , I, J, K, and L. Only Zdeno Chara and Dougie Hamilton were considered "safe" from this experiment. Choose four of them, the order isn't important.

So just looking at the numbers, and no faces behind them, who do you want to be on the ice? Vote below! I will only count the positive votes, so don't bother voting the ones you don't want down.

Vote!

Forwards:

Ranker - Lists About Everything

Defensemen:

Ranker - Lists About Everything