Hey Line 2 - Can't you at least Outscore the Defense?

I may not be a genius - especially when it comes to hockey - but I have one question.

Shouldn't your offense be outscoring your defense? I mean – that’s why they play on the offense, right? So they can score. That’s the whole idea.

I mean, Gaborik, of course, is scoring. The Gifted One has an amazing 21 goals already - a pretty good season's worth of goals and we haven't played in December yet.

And Prospal has 6 goals. He also has a ton of assists - many of which are just the results of his always-brilliant decision to pass to his linemate Marian Gaborik.

And Kotalik with his cannon-like shot has 6 goals - although he played his worst hockey in his brief visit to our first line.

But after those three - with 17 points - 5 goals and 12 assists - is a rookie defenseman - Michael Del Zotto. On the offense Anisimov has 5 goals as well.

Now that's great for Delzy - but what does it say about our other 9 forwards that they can't outscore him?

And at 4 goals we've got two defensemen (Girardi and Gilroy) and two forwards (Avery and Callahan)

And all the remaining forwards: Drury, Higgins. Lisin, Dubinsky (I know, but still), Parenteau, Boyle, Brashear, Voros all trail our top three defenders in goals.

And that is exactly what's wrong with the offense in lines 2-4. Almost all of them can't outscore our top 3 defensemen. In fact - as crazy as this sounds - if we made a forward line out of Delzy, Gilly and Giradi, they'd start off with more goals than our current 2nd line now has.

We need to get somebody going. When Dubinsky’s hand gets better - he could be one of those guys. Callahan seems to be working hard - but always a step slow. Higgins, whose disappointment in himself shows on his face every night is desperate to start contributing goals but can't seem to do it.

Drury. There's extra attention on him because of his salary - but at least he's working hard and contributing on special teams.

Has Tortorella made this harder by constantly shuffling the lines? It's a double edged sword. He wants to reward hard work - but the movement doesn't give lines time to develop together.

Whatever the cause is - non-Gaborik and non-defenseman scoring is way too low.

If we can figure out a way to get the 2nd line to score - there is no telling how far this team can climb. But if we don't - we're talking no playoffs.

So, come on somebody - you're the offense. The least you can do is outscore the defense. Otherwise you guys might as well switch places.