When discussing the line-changing at his weekly press conference, Anastos joked he’s a fan of the “Scotty Bowman factor.”

Bowman, who’s widely considered one of the greatest head coaches in NHL history in a career in which he racked up a record 1,244 regular-season wins and 223 playoff wins, was known for his tendency to switch up lines during games to keep players on their toes.

“I hope we can get in a rhythm where we don’t have to be constantly changing lines,” Anastos said. “I will tell you that during the games, we will change the lines sometimes just for the sake of trying to create a different rhythm in the game. I’ll always use that as a potential strategy during the course of time, but generally speaking, I’d like to settle on some lines where guys have some time to practice together and get some flow together and build some chemistry.”

Senior forward Anthony Hayes said he believes the team is starting to see where obvious chemistry lies, and that the line-shuffling is becoming less of an issue every game.

Being the nature of a college sports team, there is constant turnover every year, and Hayes said the new players having to fit into lines is an issue every college team faces at the beginning of the season.

“There’s very few times that all three guys on a line return and they can just pick up right where they left off,” Hayes said. “It’s something all teams have to deal with. It’s something we knew we’re going to have to deal with, probably to a greater extent coming in with so many new guys.”

Anastos said he’s used Hayes, senior forward Chris Forfar and freshman forward Ryan Keller primarily have been playing a line together. He cited their similar styles of play: strong, physical and an ability to posses pucks in the offensive zone.

“People ask me what position I play, I say ‘I’m a forward,’” Forfar said. “I’ve played left wing, right wing, center in my time here. Me and Hayes have played together for three years now and I don’t see that changing anytime soon, but if it does it’s just going to happen because of the newness of our team.”

Anastos said noticing that style of play in those three is the same thing he looks for when putting lines and defensive pairings together — complementary styles of hockey.

“You also keep in mind when you’re putting line combinations together how those lines will be impacted by specialty teams, power plays, penalty kills,” Anastos said. “Let’s say you go on a power play, you need to be able to come back with a line hopefully intact so you can start your rotation again, and the same on the penalty kill.”