In an effort to spread out the offence, Ottawa Senators head coach Craig Hartsburg has certainly had his share of experiments.
In the preseason, he tried putting rookie Jesse Winchester on a line with Jason Spezza and Dany Heatley while placing Daniel Alfredsson on the second unit. He also tried generating a more balanced attack by putting Mike Fisher between Alfredsson and Heatley and shifting Spezza to the second unit with Winchester and sophomore Nick Foligno.
And just recently, Hartsburg reunited Winchester with Spezza and Heatley and placed Alfredsson with Fisher and Foligno all over again.
The end result has been disappointing to say the least, as the Senators have scored just five goals in their last five games - all losses - and are ranked 28th in the league in offence. In addition, the Senators - still the league's highest scoring team since the end of the lockout - have scored four or more goals just three times this season.
With that in mind, Hartsburg has gone back to basics, putting the Pizza Line of Spezza, Heatley and Alfredsson back together in Monday's 2-1 shootout loss to the New York Rangers.
"We need a bit of a spark right now," Hartsburg said Tuesday. "We are hoping that line can spark us. The history is that they have scored - it's not always best for your team to have them together. But I we think right now it's an opportunity for them to lead us and spark us."
And that spark worked well enough for the Senators to sneak a point out of New York on Monday, with the line scoring Ottawa's lone goal in regulation time. However, the old magic didn't come without some harsh words from the coach.
"At the end of the first period I had to go in and give them all crap - the three of them," said Hartsburg. "Because they didn't play the right way and as the game went on, they started to be better. They got us a goal - they gave up a goal."
The reunited line, which combined for 13 shots on Henrik Lundqvist on Monday, will be together again when the Senators host Montreal in an all-important Northeast Division matchup.
"We created a lot of chances, started to do a lot of better things," said Spezza. "But now we are not there yet. In the third period we supported each other better, and maybe early on we were a little excited to be together again and played a little looser."