Nick Foligno Dropped to Fourth Line. Lukas Reichel on the Third? First Blackhawks Lineups, Depth Charts Published on New THN Site

When the Washington Capitals bought and took over hockey salary and roster database CapFriendly, stats guru Tim Hiebert was out of a job.

CapFriendly was a go-to source not just for hockey fans, but journalists both close to and even on the fringe of covering the sport. Like Hockey Reference, it was an approved tool for us reporters who work for the Associated Press.

CapFriendly is now the exclusive property of one NHL team. But Hiebert, who was CapFriendly’s depth charts manager for six years, has become publisher of the the new Lineups section of The Hockey News. It’s a new home for NHL projected lineups, depth charts and roster related news and analysis.

To see how Hiebert’s first take for the Chicago Blackhawks, check out https://thehockeynews.com/lineups/central/chicago-blackhawks-projected-lineup-and-depth-chart

For now, a few things raise eyebrows.

De facto captain Nick Foligno has been dropped to the Blackhawks fourth line to start, despite his steadiness shift after shift and strength on the boards, Unfocused, ineffective peripheral forward Lukas Reichel is on the third.

Odds are that won’t really be the case once the puck drops in October. OK, This will be a work in progress.

The general site, including information for all 32 NHL teams is at https://thehockeynews.com/lineups/

Welcome to The Hockey News Lineups

Here’s what Hiebert said he hopes to deliver.

• The long-term goal is to build something more user-friendly, so stay tuned for a more robust feature down the road. The data can be a little slow to load sometimes, but he thinks it looks pretty good in this format. He tried to mimic the CapFriendly layout with a few tweaks, so it should look familiar to those who visited the old pages.

• He’s also teamed evolving-hockey.com to bring some advanced hockey stats to the depth charts. You’ll now find CF% (Corsi For), iGx (individual expected goals) and GSAx (goals saved above expected). For an explanation of these stats and all advanced stats in general, he recommends reading the Evolving-Hockey Glossary.