MLD 2012 Mickey Ion QF: Yarmouth Mariners vs. Sherbrooke Castors
 

POWERPLAY

PP1: Morris Lukowich - Herb Jordan - Claude Giroux - Bob Dailey - Mario Marois
PP2: Don Maloney - Craig Janney - Keith Crowder - Gary Sargent - Alex Smith

PENALTY KILL:

PK1: Stu Barnes - Colin Patterson - Lou Fontinato - Jeff Beukeboom
PK2: Orest Kindrachuk - Chico Maki - Bob Dailey - Mario Marois[/center]

Few preliminary thoughts:

- Thought these were the two most well-structured teams in the division, looking forward to the matchup. Best of luck to you, Dave.
- Who's going to protect Robbie Ftorek? The Castors bottom-six is featured by a series of fleet checkers, who will do everything in their power to shutdown the Mariners' first line. One quote provides evidence that Vickers was physical, but to my knowledge he was very one dimensional, and Marian Stastny is also an extreme one-way player. I think this line could run into some real trouble with Sherbrooke's bottom lines.
- Size seems to be a recurring theme, as Marian, Ftorek and Ronning, three of the Mariners' key forwards are 5'10" and under, and the Castors' project to be a very physical team.
- Are Stelnov and Starikov MLD material? I'd really like to know more about them, they appear somewhat underwhelming besides the apparent chemistry.
- I don't like Cam Ward as an MLD starter at all, I think that is far and away the weakest component of the Mariners, I see this as a major issue considering the surplus of able goal scorers on the Castors.

I started school again last week, so my comments may be limited because I am also working on the weekends, but I will do my best to include my perspective in the coming days.

Vickers was regarded as a pretty tough customer and a pretty solid two-way guy by most accounts I've read. Here's a bit that I didn't really include in the bio:

http://insidehockey.com/retro-ranger...-steve-vickers

So that gives Stastny some protection with a pretty good two-way guy in Vickers and a strong defensive pivot in Ftorek for that line, backed up by a very strong defensive group.

Physicality isn't too much of a concern. The Mariners team may be a bit on the small side but they're quite fast for the most part, and there is a good bit of physicality in their own right up front to keep things under wraps.

Stelnov was the more defense oriented of the two Soviets, though both were pretty well regarded. However he stayed in Europe instead of making the trek to North America and took a couple years off hockey even before a last two year stint with CSKA Moscow before his retirement. Starikov was the older of the two, and the more offense oriented of the two. He played a few seasons over here after the fall of the Soviet Union, and did pretty well in his stints in the AHL and IHL despite not really sticking in the NHL. But given his age when he made the move (34) and the stories of how many former Soviet plays were treated when they made the move to the NHL it's not that much of a shock that he didn't stick.

But as to if they fit, I'd say yes definitely. You have to remember just how strong those Soviet teams were in the 80s, and how much depth they were working with. The two were prettymuch staples on the team, albeit as a 3rd pairing in most major tournaments, but they still played strong ice time and in the case of Starikov put up pretty respectable numbers (11 pts in 19 games in the Olympics). The Soviet depth at the time too was very solid. They had Fetisov, Kasatonov, Pervukhin, and Bilyaletdinov prettymuch throughout their careers with the team. Vasilliev in the early parts of their careers. And a lot of guys like Konstantinov, Gusarov, Dmitri Mironov, and Kravchuk that were competing for spots with them later on. So that they had the staying power that they did on the Soviet teams says a lot to me about the level of player we're talking about, even if they weren't in staring roles.


I kindof expected Ward to be perceived as the weak link in this team. But that said, look at what he's done over the past few years vs what many of his contemporaries have done and Ward's just flat as good or better. The one exception to that is Giguere who had a better post-season peak then Ward. Mostly I'm looking at post-season and international play, as that's typically a better indicator of how a goalie will do in the playoffs in a stage like this IMO. In that Ward fares exceptionally well. He carries a 6-1 post-season series record with him, a .917 save % and 2.38 post-season GAA. And those numbers actually could quite easily be better if not for an injury. Entering that series in which he was injured he was carrying a .927% and 2.22 GAA. All this despite playing behind what has arguably been one of the worst defenses in hockey for the duration of his career.

Meloche likewise has a very strong post-season resume to go with him, basically willing an underdog North Stars team to the Conference Finals and the Cup Finals. He should have no problem spelling Ward should he falter.

First Lines:

There's concern that Claude Giroux may not be as effective on the wing as he is at centre, citing his recent success. Which yes, is a valid point, but definitely should not be observed as a negative. While his last two years have come playing in the middle, he is still a fantastic playmaker, and he has one of the top echelon goal-scorers in the entire MLD on his line. Giroux's playmaking will be utilized to set up the Castors' star forward, Herb Jordan. I think it's reasonable to say that Jordan is the best offensive player in this series, and with the type of playmaking he'll receive on his wings will maximize his goal-scoring ability. Don Maloney was a solid offensive player, and will do what he does best, win puck battles in the corners, something the Mariners' line seems to lack.

The Mariners' have a good offensive first line, Ftorek's NHL statistics were nothing special, but it is passable for a first line centre. Marian Stastny is a good, one-dimensional option on the wing. Steve Vickers, as provided above, was a serviceable two-way forward. Is he capable of winning puck battles? If he doesn't have a reputation of getting the puck out of the corner, then it creates an issue for the line. Ftorek serves as the primary playmaker, and he has two scorers on his wings, how will the line get their opportunities? Did Vickers have success as a guy in front of the crease? I think the lack of size also hurts the line, the Castors' top defensive pair will be the suspect matchup against the Mariners' first line when applicable. Below is how Jacques Martin plans on using the behemoth pairing of Beukeboom and Dailey.

I think the line will be very hard-pressed to get good scoring opportunities if they are constantly getting bullied by the two punishing rearguards, especially in high-percentage areas.

Slight Advantage: Sherbrooke I think the Castors' chemistry bonus is a deciding factor to compare the lines, I'm also very concerned about the lines' effectiveness of size, when they are up against a particularly larger team and defense corps.

Second Lines:

I think the Castors' second line is a very strong offensive threat. Craig Janney, probably the most one-dimensional player in the draft, but easily one of the best playmaking centres of his era and in this draft, is flanked by two able goal scorers. Keith Crowder, a mean, physical winger that scored 23 or more goals in six separate seasons and Morris Lukowich who was a Ftorek-equivalent IMO, small, gritty and quick, who tallied over 30 goals in four different seasons. I see absolutely no condition that this line cannot succeed, and I think may be one of the best second lines in the draft. A high-octane offensive line with physicality and two-way ability.

Anton was bigger than Marian, but he was just as soft. A guy who could set up plays and also score goals, he'll do fine aside Cliff Ronning, who I view as a poor man's Craig Janney. Ronning also seemed to be fairly soft, but was able to excel offensively over a long period of time. Willi Plett was a physical presence, but he is a lot like Eric Vail to me, minus the fact Vail was much more non-chalant and didn't often engage in fights. How effective was Plett physically? He was a tough customer that didn't hesitate to drop the gloves, but he seems like a serious candidate to hurt his team via stupid, arbitrary penalties, and I think that is what he was rather than a defensive forward.

Moderate Advantage: Sherbrooke I believe that the Castors' second line is a much bigger threat than the Mariners' unit. Janney and Crowder also have played with each other in the past, and on the power play. I think Ronning-Stastny is a good pair that could work, but I also question Ronning getting opportunities against the Castors' defensive forwards and physical players.

Third Lines:

Orest Kindrachuk is a personal favorite of mine and Dwight's, we have selected him three years in a row and he has captained all of our teams together. He is a jack-of-all-trades that had a reputation as a defensive forward that also did his part offensively. Nick Libett and Chico Maki both had checking duties during their careers against future Hall of Fame players (view biographies for more information), Maki was specifically chosen by Billy Reay to shut down Jean Beliveau in the 1968 Playoffs, and successfully did so in two games in a series between the Blackhawks and Canadiens, but ultimately fell due to the depth of the Canadiens. Libett was a solid contributor on decent offensive teams, was a reputable checker and an underrated player on an all time scale. Overall this makes for a pretty solid checking line with shutdown prowess.

Larry Patey is a fantastic third line centre and a spectacular defensive specialist, I anticipate some problems matching up against him. Sami Kapanen was a good two-way guy, but I wouldn't call him a good checker, he was great positionally and will be a offensive option. Tom Hooper seems like a one-dimensional guy that had a few flashes of brilliance before fading into mediocrity, please provide something on him so we can get a better read.

Advantage: Sherbrooke I see Yarmouth's third line as a lesser scoring line with a strong defensive centre, Patey will be covering the vast majority of checking duties against the Castors' top lines unless there is something I am missing. On the other side, the Castors' unit is a very capable line of matching up with the opponent's scoring lines.

False
 

Bolded is false or a revisionist history at its finest. Jean Beliveau dominated the first three games of the series against Chicago:

http://www.flyershistory.com/cgi-bin/hsppogames.cgi

5G/4A eating Chico Maki alive at even strength.Maki did not have the size nor could he skate with Beliveau or any good NHL center. Then Beliveau suffered a leg injury that eventually sidelined him for the finals against St.Louis.

http://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/MTL/1968.html

There was a game where he went scoreless, and one where he was held to an assist. Check the biography for validation since its impossible to get anything past your arrogance.

Facts
 

Games 4 and 5 saw Beliveau go scoreless playing on one leg. Healthy in the first three games he ate Maki alive as supported by the game summaries and the numbers I provided previously.

Since I don't have much time to share my thoughts, I'll try and summarize the rest of the comparisons.

- Just realized Patey was your fourth, not third line centre. Merrick is just as competent, but a lesser candidate as a shutdown centre, but can play responsible defensively and put points up, just like Kindrachuk.

- Fourth lines are pretty similar, I think Patey and Patterson are equals as players. Patey perhaps has an edge due to shorthanded goal-scoring prowess. But they were both sound defensive forwards who were assigned checking assignments during their career. They both also possess an outlier in Selke voting, a 3rd place each which is extremely impressive. Reid and Presley are both great defensive forwards that make your fourth line the most likely to match up against the Castors' top lines. Stastny and Barnes were both two-way guys who were reputable defensively. I'll give your line an advantage here.

I think they are pretty much the same player too. They averaged 27-28 adjusted ESP per season, they had one great season of selke recognition, they got the same ES icetime, and both played about 40% on the PK for teams 5% better than average.

Patey's advantage is that he did all that for 50% longer than Patterson did.

Patterson's advantage is that he did this for MUCH better teams and improved their already great ES GF:GA ratio (1.23 to 1.27). Patey was on horrible teams and didn't help their ES GF:GA ratio (0.83 to 0.70)

Eh, I wouldn't call Patey's 3rd place an outlier. He also has a 6th place, plus a couple more seasons with a smattering of votes. Patterson has a another near top 10 I believe, but Patey's Selke voting is certainly superior. And when taken with his short-handed prowess, plus pretty decently superior offensive prowess overall (however with both on fourth lines, I'd say the overall offensive advantage is pretty marginal in this specific series) I'd say that Patey is by a fair, but conclusive amount the superior player.

anything past top-15 is pretty much crap.

both have a 3rd place finish behind excellent players, Patey with a few more voting points.

The difference between Patey's 6th and Patterson's 12th is this: (1-1-3) to (1-2-2). Both 5 votes in total. And if the voting points system wasn't a ridiculous 5-3-1, Patterson would have scored higher.

Despite the rankings, those seasons are really of equal value.

and I assure you, whatever offensive edge it looks like Patey has, it was all from getting PP time for bad teams. At ES, they are identical offensively.

Patey has a third in scoring for a team that won a division, and of course he finished first in scoring on the Seals once but that basically aligns with what you're saying. I would say that is a certainly better scoring record than anything Patterson ever did, PP scoring or not. And as I said, the offense here is marginal differences.

Having said that, the rest of your post is duly noted. Pretty much by any metric you use, Patey was 6th in voting and Patterson was 12th. I did the math for a 10-7-5 voting sample, and a 3-2-1 voting sample just for the kicks of it. Both come out to be the same results that season, Patey 6th and Patterson 12th.

However, there were a different number of voters each year. 54 votes for Patterson's year, and 62 in Patey's year. Therefore you could make the argument that Patterson got a higher percentage of votes that season (out of a possible 270 points, he got 13) than Patey (out of a possible 310, he got 11), but at the same time the same argument could be made that defensive dominance wasn't constant that season. Voting was MUCH more spread out during Patterson's 12th place finish as opposed to Patey's 6th. That was the year Poulin won with 102 votes out of a possible 270. Patey's season was Kaspar and Gainey BOTH taking a higher percentage of votes than Poulin did to win (Kaspar was at 178/310, Gainey was at 157/310). So Patey would be expected to have a lower vote total due to the dominance at the top of those two players.

So I guess the question is: where do we go from here? Personally, I'm going with Patey's season to be superior becasue he was rated as the 6th best defensive player in the league that season and Patterson was rated 12th (such reduced logic here, but hold on), and just by the eye test, I see a pretty equal amount of defensive talent (depth wise) in both years. Be it the same amount of votes or not, the dominance at the top of the mountain by Kaspar and Gainey left less room to work with to receive votes than Patterson had with Poulin's Selke season, which from a voting dominance level looks to be the weakest Selke season of the 1980s. If you would make a different conclusion, I would pretty much totally understand that.

But to get 3rd in team scoring you have to be getting PP time, and these players aren't getting PP time here, so that is pretty much irrelevant.

I think it's splitting hairs. They both got 6 votes.

Patey had 1 PP goal (21 goals overall) the season he finished third in scoring on the Blues division title team. It seems a disproportionate amount of his offense there came at ES.



I disagree that it's splitting hairs for the reason above, but I'm not convincing you so I'm gonna let that one go.

Oh wow, I didn't realize my own Bob MacMillan led a division winner in points! :naughty:

Mind you, this was a horrible team offensively but average defensively, ending up 7 games below .500.

Anyway, I see you're right, Patey had 46 ESP that season, so good for him. (in 1985 Patterson was actually on pace for 51 but played just 57 games)

Patey was much more physical and aggressive than Patterson, right?

I left last draft thinking that Patey was "somewhat" physical and aggressive. I don't know much about Patterson's physicality, only his raw defensive skill, as I have never researched him in depth.

seventies, RE: Patterson's physicality: he was a physical presence, few valid quotes in the biography.

- I see the Mariners' first pairing as very comparable to the Castors' unit. Save the exponential size difference, both include a poor skating, shut down defenseman. And a mobile, 200-foot game-playing defenseman. I think Dailey is the best of the four, and is a very strong #1, paired with a giant in Beukeboom, this shutdown pairing of two 6'5" behemoths will be hell to try and get opportunities, especially with the lack of toughness in the Mariners' top lines.

- Kaberle is a great offensive defenseman at this level, he has an edge over Marois. I think Fontinatio brings much more to the table then Milbury however, he is a very responsible defensive defenseman who matches up nicely with the two-way Marois. Kaberle is a nice asset, especially on the PP.

- Stelnov and Starikov, albeit gaining critical acclaim for their play, there is nothing IMO that really suggests they were superior to their peers. Just a standard pairing of flashes of brilliance, but nothing really spectacular. Alex Smith was a superstar in his day, and could play both ends well. Sargent was an offensive blueliner who will be an asset on the PP.

- Goaltending is far and away the biggest gap in this series, I like Gilles Meloche as a starter before Ward. Besides his Conne Smythe and Cup Victory, he has two top-10's in Vezina voting and has missed the playoffs in five of six years since winning the cup, one year shortened by injury which is reasonable. But as a starter with a reasonable workload on a middle-tier team, that is very unimpressive. Don Edwards is an elite starting goaltender, and I think will be a difference maker in this series.


REASONS SHERBROOKE SHOULD DEFEAT YARMOUTH IN A SEVEN-GAME SERIES:
- Balanced forward corps, that are capable of playing a 200-foot game. Offensively and defensively, responsible.
- Best player in series, Herb Jordan.
- Strong offensive players insulated by two-way forwards who can utilize their ability to create chances.
- Extremely competent bottom-six that has great matchup ability, players competent to shutdown oppositions forwards.
- Strong defense units, top to bottom, a fearsome first pairing and a group that includes intangibles.
- Significantly better goaltending.
- Coached by Jacques Martin, who can play a defensive style game, and also utilize his offensive guns to the best of their ability. Very good with matchups.

Best of luck, Dave.

I don't know if Dave will be here tonight to contest this, but the absolute last thing you could say about Ward the past three years is that he's had a reasonable workload on a middle-tier team.

I see them both being about the same type of all-time goalie, middle-tier goalies who generally played on bad teams and had some un-recognized stretches of brilliance. The same kind of player that, say, Marc-Andre Fleury would be on a different team. To the extent that anything separates them, it might be a simple longevity advantage for Meloche.

Your winner, in six games, is Sherbrooke.

stars of the series:

1. Herb Jordan
2. Don Edwards
3. Steve Vickers
4. Bob Dailey
5. Stu Barnes

Too bad Dave wasn't able to reflect his views on the series, this was a matchup I anticipated later in the playoffs. You built a strong team, Dave.

This was by far the toughest series for me to vote on personally.

Honestly what swung it for me was the goaltending matchup. You guys both built strong competitive teams though so neither of you should be terribly disappointed. Just kinda unlucky that this matchup happened now.

Yeah my schedule of late has been rough to the point that even my ADD has been saying "uncle" for a while trying to keep up. :laugh:

Kindof glad you won this as you'll probably be better able to defend your points in later rounds then I'm going to be. I was just figuring we'd have to wait at least another round to see this matchup. My orchestra gigs are starting up this month so I'm not even sure I'd be able to do the little spot-defense I did.

Good luck the rest of the way.