So he ' s been browsing around looking to get offended <| sep |> The author raises several good points , and it ' s absolutely true that nobody should handwave away any bad decisions by saying that the fourth line or bottom pairing don ' t really matter . But I wonder if this sub , and this author , might be making the same mistake in some cases . This post itself handwaves away Smith ' s job of winning some faceoffs and penalty killing . How sure are we that these jobs aren ' t more important than we might think at first glance ? Ben Smith has played more PK time than any forward besides Komarov despite missing the first third of the current season ' s games . He ' s winning faceoffs at a 58 % clip . I can ' t really comment on Holland ' s PK abilities , but Babcock seems to rely on Smith more than anyone else on the PK . Who ' s to say that PK ability isn ' t the 2 % that ' s important in this case ? In a close game , getting through 2 . 53 minutes a game 4 v 5 might have a larger effect on the game than the 7 minutes of 5 v 5 time the fourth line typically has .