I know this is late to the party, but I wanted to throw this out there for discussion. It sort of ties the points Tom and DaveM made together.
I'm not 100 percent positive, but I think it was Ken Hitchcock talking once about not thinking in terms of 3-man lines, but rather in pairs. He liked to find two players that had good chemistry and then fit in a complementary piece.
I like that theory because it's sometimes easier to find three or four pairs of players that match-up well together than maybe even just two sets of three. It's still possible to come up with the "ideal" playmaker-scorer-grinder combo this way, but it allows for some flexibility if there isn't enough of one type to go around.
Kevin we spent the first half of the season mixing the lines up and trying players at various positions. I went with the idea of putting two players together.
A few weeks ago we went with our 6 offensive players on two lines and a checking line. Our goals for has gone up by two a game and our GA by one a game. These combo's can go out on the pplay without me mixing all of the lines up. We have 9 F and 6 D and are playing with three five man units. We have two great skating tenacious D playing with the checking line and a puck mover defensive defense pair playing with each of the offensive lines.
There is no rule saying the checking line can't score and they chip in a few goals.
The problem with having offensive players on the same line with checkers is that the checkers tend to dump the puck in and dump the puck out instead of making plays and this results in a lot of puck chasing instead of puck possession.
So I think it is better to keep puck movers together and defensive forwards together so they can contribute what they are good at. The offensive players create scoring chances and the more defensive players gain zones and keep the puck in front of them.
'Enjoy the Game'