Not sure why you would take yamo of the 2nd line. These would be my top two lines!!!
AA McD Kass
Nuge Drai Yamo

2 of our best bottom line players are a scratch??????

Agreed, and I don't see Sheahan and Archie getting healthy scratched - they've been very good playing 2nd line since the 1-line went down and both are the Oilers prime PKers.

Also, Bear demoted to 3RD from 1RD?? Makes no sense... this is all messed up.

Good thing you are not in charge of the team Rangerwall

So my initial reaction identified that you clearly don't watch the Oilers' games, so please try to keep up:

1. Neal's out for an indeterminate amount of time. Expectation is that he'll be back before playoffs, but nothing in stone as of right now. When he returns, it's highly likely that he'll play 4th line minutes with powerplay time; he's absolute ass at even strength and he knows it
2. You're demoting Yamamoto for... reasons? The RNH-Draisaitl-Yamamoto line is arguably Edmonton's top line right now, they won't be pulled apart for anything until they quit clicking for an extended period of time.
3. Scratching the 2nd and 4th best penalty-killing players on the team is a bold strategy that will not result in anything positive for the Oilers. On that note, Nygard is out for the remainder of the year due to a busted hand.
4. Jujhar Khaira is not an NHL center. Repeat after me: Jujhar Khaira is not an NHL center. Gaetan Haas is however, Edmonton's #4C.
5. Mike Green and Matthew Benning will rotate out of the #3RD position. Benning's likely to get the beefier matchups, Green the games that are expected to turn into a track meet.
6. Caleb Jones has earned his spot on this roster and will not be going anywhere anytime soon. I think I like this roster with Benson on it too, he can rotate in and out with Khaira as the #4LW in a similar manner to Green/Benning.
7. You can't buy players out midseason: if Russell's career is truly over and he remains on LTIR, he can either stay there or be traded for a late pick to a team (ie: Tampa Bay) in desperate need of salary relief.
8. Kassian still has 2 games of his suspension to serve: count him out for the near future.

That just about covers it.

EDIT: how the hell did I miss the Bear thing. He's to play alongside Nurse on the top pairing until Klefbom's back, in which that entire pairing probably gets bumped down a touch.

https://www.capfriendly.com/forums/thread/311646

FTFY

What Better Chia said is exactly correct

I wanna agree, but I still have to give it to Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak. They're absolutely a close second.

Since January 2nd (when this line was formed), the Edmonton trio has scored 22 goals for vs 8 allowed (73.33 GF%) in 20 games.

In that same span, Boston's Perfection Line has scored 13 goals for vs 5 allowed (72.22 GF) in 22 games. So they're better defensively but not anywhere close to as good offensively: 4.99 GF/60 for the Dynamite Line vs 3.46 GF/60 for the Perfection Line.

You could look at it this way:

DYNamite: 4.99 GF/60 - 1.81 GA/60 = +3.18
Perfection: 3.46 GF/60 - 1.33 GA/60 = +2.13

So for every sixty minutes of play, the DYNamite line outscores the opposition by a FULL GOAL more than the Perfection line does.

The Perfection line does have better underlying metrics including CF% and xGF% though, so you could easily make that case.

If Edmonton gets McDavid rolling and Klefbom gets healthy, this team is most certainly a Cup contender. I never thought I'd be saying that this season...

It was more the defensive record and history that line has together that I zoomed in on. I believe the Perfection line has maintained a similar GF/60 throughout the majority of the season as well, so the sample size is much more impressive (not that the Dynamite line's track record over 45 days hasn't been).

Playoff Mike Smith is an animal. Koskinen has been reasonably steady this year. For me, it's WCF or bust now.

Over the entire season the Perfection line has posted 39-21 goals (65.00 GF%), and decent underlying metrics but not as good as they've been in the past 22 games. Also: 4.10 GF/60 - 2.21 GA/60 = +1.89 GD/60

Still impressive, but less so.