The recent discussion around the Montreal Canadiens has centered upon the resigned Andreas Martinsen and rumours swirling around a new contract for Brian Flynn, to the point where the noise has exceeded the actual on-ice impacts of these two players.
But the tumult around Flynn and Martinsen raises an interesting question. In the modern NHL, we’ve seen we’ve seen the gap between the best and the worst player in the league shrink considerably.
So then: what, today, is your average NHL 4th liner?
Methodology
The foremost obstacle to answering this question was defining the three players comprising the 4th line.