With the sheer number of injuries the Vancouver Canucks have dealt with this early in the season, Head Coach Adam Foote has had to experiment with multiple different combinations of his forward group.

The first-year head coach has been tested on that front and is also tasked with teaching young forwards like Arshdeep Bains, Max Sasson, Linus Karlsson, and Aatu Räty as they go through the growing pains of learning the NHL game. He has kept the Bains-Sasson-Karlsson line together for the most part, but he’s had to get creative to get some of his players going.

Against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday night, Foote kept his first (Evander Kane – Elias Pettersson – Conor Garland) and fourth (Arshdeep Bains – Max Sasson – Linus Karlsson) line intact, but made some adjustments to the middle-six lines.

Foote moved Kiefer Sherwood to the second line with Brock Boeser and Lukas Reichel, dropping Jake DeBrusk to the third line with Drew O’Connor and Aatu Räty.

And those new combinations looked good against the Blue Jackets. Those two lines scored three of the Canucks’ four goals en route to their 4-3 regulation win.

The Canucks Head Coach spoke with the media postgame and touched on what he saw from his new combinations and the value of having threatening scoring options deeper in the lineup:

“Yeah, it’s nice. I mean, when you have young guys come up and the injuries we had, you sometimes think you have to put your top guys together. I think teams coming in might mark [the young guys as] easier to check. You know, when you’re missing some key guys, they can put their top defensive pair and their top defensive line on [your top lines], and that’s hard to get those guys away from that hard matchup at 5-on-5. So, I think just moving a couple of guys around, we got Jake some room, right? He exposed it. It worked tonight. What I like is the guys have been accepting it. Boes has been accepting it, and that’s a good teammate.”

While you can call one line the second and one line the third, they truly operated evenly at 5-on-5: Räty’s line played 9:19 minutes, while Reichel’s line played 8:58.

In these changes, Foote had a proven goal-scorer in Boeser and DeBrusk on the ice during the middle sixes’ shifts, allowing them to lead by example offensively with some of their less-experienced linemates. They were also able to line-match those goal scorers against lesser opponents. Räty’s line skated most of its 5-on-5 ice time against the Miles Wood – Sean Monahan – Kent Johnson line, while Reichel’s line matched up against the Cole Sillinger – Charlie Coyle – Mathieu Olivier/Boone Jenner line.

This resulted in a massive night for the Räty’s line, controlling 77.78% of the shot share at 5-on-5. The trio also scored the Canucks’ first two goals of the game – including this beauty from DeBrusk:

Reichel’s line was a little more low-event than they would have hoped – getting outshot 4-3 at 5-on-5 – but they worked into the scoring when it mattered. Sherwood sprung Boeser on the partial breakaway for what stood as the game-winning goal:

These two lines combined led them to victory as they accounted for three of the four 5-on-5 goals for the Canucks.

Fast forward to Sunday night against the high-flying Colorado Avalanche, Foote rolled with the same forward lines, and it didn’t affect them. All four lines held their own at 5-on-5.

Räty line mostly matched up against the Gabriel Landeskog – Jack Drury – Victor Olofsson line. They held their own, splitting the shot share 4-4 at 5-on-5.

Reichel’s line mostly played against the Ross Colton – Brock Nelson – Valeri Nichuskin line. While they were outshot 4-5 at 5-on-5, the trio scored the Canucks’ only 5-on-5 goal off the stick of Sherwood:

On paper, it’s not the prettiest middle-six forward lines. However, Foote has gotten the most of those new combinations over the previous two games. His thought process to strengthen the depth of his team by having one of DeBrusk and Boeser on different lines helped the Canucks with their 5-on-5 scoring this weekend, accounting for four of the five 5-on-5 goals.

As the Canucks start to get healthy again, DeBrusk and Boeser will likely reunite on a line. But in the meantime, Foote’s decision to spread out their lines has resulted in on-ice success at even strength in back-to-back games against two of the highest-flying offences in today’s National Hockey League.