If you spend much time on The Athletic or on hockey Twitter, you’ve probably noticed that much – oh, so much – of the conversation centers around the bottom of team’s lineups. Who should dress, who should be scratched, who should get how many minutes and so on. And, that makes sense. There’s less doubt about the top of the lineup, where really the only thing for armchair GMs to concern themselves with is who should play with whom.



Of late, there’s been much debate in Leafs Nation, as well as a few other cities, about just how much ice time should be allocated to their respective bottom D pairs. I mean, an almost unhealthy amount of debate, as demonstrated by this Flyers writer below:



In Toronto, it’s all about Roman Polak, and WHY THE HELL DOES HE PLAY SO MUCH WHY DID THE TEAM SCRATCH TRAVIS DERMOTT WHY IS THIS GUY EVEN ON THE ROSTER??!? Which, while extreme, is not entirely unjustified. He’s played poorly, yet he keeps...