MLD 2012 Montague Allan Finals: Zambia Mania vs Connecticut Whale
 

Ah, my old nemesis Hedberg. This time, thing will turn out differently, my friend. :naughty:

Well, it looks like Zambia has pretty obvious and significant advantages in net, on the bench, and on the blueline. Hopefully, I'll be able to take a run at the forward groups later on today.

I'm not sure how obvious our advantage behind the bench is, to be honest. Muldoon was quite succcessful in the PCHA before coming to the NHL.

Agree that goaltending is a big advantage for Zambia, probably the biggest in this series.

Moran and Nicholsson are actually quite comparable, as their careers largely overlapped.

Reasons why Moran is significantly better than Nicholsson

1) The biggest reason - look at their profiles - multiple contemporary sources called Moran the best goalie of his time. Not everyone agreed that Moran was the best (he had competition from LeSeuer and Hern at least), but quite a few thought he was. There just isn't information out there that Nicholsson was as highly regarded by people who saw him play - not a single reference calling him "the best" or "possibly the best" goalie.

2) If you believe in Iain Fyffe's formula, Moran was the most accomplished goalie of the 1900s, ahead of Hern and Hutton: http://hockeyhistorysis.blogspot.com...-of-1900s.html

Iain lists Moran as "likely deserving" to be in the HHOF and Hern and Hutton as "maybe deserving."

Percy LeSeuer is listed as "possibly (maybe) deserving" enshrinement in comparison to 1910s players, but his score is very similar to Moran's - he's hurt by being compared to the stronger 1910s players: http://hockeyhistorysis.blogspot.com...-of-1910s.html

I'm not sure what Nicholson's score is, but it appears that it is not high enough to merit inclusion in even the "maybe deserving" category.

3) Moran was one of the first 5 goalies to be inducted into the HHOF

1945: Charlie Gardiner, Georges Vezina
1958: Alec Connell, Hugh Lehman, Paddy Moran
1959: Tiny Thompson
1961: George Hainsworth, Percy LeSeueur
1962: Riley Hern, Bouse Hutton
1965: Clint Benedict

I don't think it means much when comparing guys who weren't peers, as older players tend to be inducted first, but I do think it is meaningful that Moran was inducted before LeSeuer, Hern, or Hutton.

Nicholson, by contrast, is not in the HHOF.

Muldoon had some sucess, but overall he was barely above 0.500. I do think he's a good MLD coach, but Bun Cook is one of the very best.

For me, the main issue is that Pete Muldoon doesn't really fit Connecticut's roster. He prefered and was most successful with tough and aggressive teams.

NHL All Star records for defensemen in this series

Zambia
Walt Buswell - 6, 7, 10
Mike Green - 1, 2, 7 (2, 2, 7 in Norris)
Miroslav Dvorak - none (2, 2, 5, 10 in Czech Golden Stick voting)
Doug Young - 7, 9, 10
Mark Streit - 10, 13, 13 (8, 10, 13 in Norris)
Scott Hannan - none
Al Hamilton - none (1st, 2nd Team AS in WHA)
Jimmy Roberts - 14 (as D)

Connecticut

Anders Eldebrink - none (1 time SEL Best player, 2 times SEL MVP, 1 WC All Star)
Kenny Johnsson - none (1 Olympics Best D, 1 WC All Star)
Dave Maloney - 15
Willie Mitchell - 19
James Stewart - N/A
Fredrick Olausson - 8 (9th in Norris)
Eric Brewer - none
Jack Ruttan - N/A

Dvorak vs Eldebrink
Considering Dvorak's 2 second place finishes in Golden Stick voting were to established ATD center Milan Novy, I think each is as impressive as Eldebrink being named best player in the SEL over guys who weren't as good as Novy. I believe the Goldpucken (for best player) is voted on by the media and Guldhjälmen (for MVP) is voted by the players. So without doing a lot of work, I think Dvorak and Eldebrink probably have similar domestic credentials. Dvorak had a better NHL career (being named best D on the Flyers once), Eldebrink was a WC All Star once. I think the Eldebrink and Dvorak are pretty close in value. Skillset-wise, Eldebrink is better offensively, Dvorak is bigger tougher, and more of an all-rounder.

Mitchell vs Hannan
I also think Willie Mitchell is only a slightly better version of Scott Hannan. Both barely received any recognition, as their offensive numbers weren't high enough. Both were big minutes defensive defensemen for very good teams for a long time.

Hannon has a more impressive international record. Mitchell was chosen to play in the 2004 World Championships, which is definitely a credit to him, but it wasn't a best on best tournament. Hannon was chosen to play in the 2004 World Cup, a true best-on-best tournament, and the 2005 World Championships, which was something of a best-on-best because of the lockout.

These are Hannan's ice time stats:

Averaged 21:47 minutes in ice time over 908 regular season games
Averaged 23:17 minutes in ice time over 82 play-off games

Even Strength Ice Time – 1st(2002), 1st(2003), 1st(2004) 1st(2006), 1st(2007), 1st(2008), 1st(2009), 1st(2010)

Short Handed Ice Time – 1st(2006), 1st(2007), 1st(2009), 1st(2010), 1st(2011), 2nd(2002), 2nd(2003), 2nd(2004), 2nd(2012)

Overall Ice Time – 1st(2003), 1st(2004), 1st(2006), 1st(2007), 1st(2009), 2nd(2008), 2nd(2010), 4th(2002), 4th(2012)

Keep in mind, he was logging that ice time for teams that were very good on average:
San Jose from 1999 to 2007 (where he was praised for his work against Peter Forsberg in the playoffs), Colorado from 2008 to 2011. Washington from 2011 to present.

I was actually going to do those same comparisons - Dvorak vs. Edelbrink and Hannan vs. Mitchell. Both are very similar.

For the sake of a comparison, Willie Mitchell never led his team in ice time. He did lead in even strength ice time 5 times, but never overall ice time like Hannan did 5 times.

He was the leader with PP time removed on a number of occasions though. But I'm sure you can say that about Hannan too, I imagine.

By now Streit's norris and all-star voting should be dismissed as statistically insignificant, not touted as evidence of greatness.

I wouldn't say it's "only slightly".

Both were on really good teams, but Mitchell's teams were much better defensively. I refer you to the study I did a couple months back:

Now it's great for Hannan to show up here at all, because it's a very exclusive list, but, we're comparing him to a guy who is 5th on the list, among HHOFers, with 8 seasons as the defensive lynchpin of an elite defensive team.

Also, as for Eldebrink, I don't have the voting in front of me now, but I thought his appeal was that he actually won the golden hockey stick once (the one for all of europe)... am I on drugs?

I simply posted the records. I didn't compare Streit to anyone (yet). Canyou wait until I actually say anything of substance about him before going out of your way to trash him? :)

But you have to be the only one who thinks that 21 votes in a single season is "statistically insignificant."

If Mitchell was the main reason his teams were so great defensively, don't you think he'd be selected to more tournaments or more highly regarded?

Anyway, Mitchell's record is great, but don't forget that he moved from the Jacques Lemaire Wild to the Vigneault/Luongo Canucks to the Darryl Sutter/Jonathan Quick Kings, all ridiculously good defensive teams.

In Mitchell's last 2 seasons with the Canucks, they were 7th and 10th in GA. The next two seasons (with Mitchell on the Kings), the Canucks were 1st and 4th in GA. You can't credit a single player with team GA.

If we were using the metrics we usually use - ice time and overall team strength or selections to international tournaments - then Hannan looks better than Mitchell. I think I was already taking the GA numbers of Mitchell's teams into account when I said he was slightly better than Hannan.

I have no idea. I was going by what was in Hedberg's profile. Winning the Golden Stick for all of Europe would be a big deal, definitely, at least if it was before 1989 when the Soviet team fell apart.

When did this change? Streit received multiple votes for both defensemen categories.

Yes, Mitchell played for better defensive teams, but he was also less of a factor than Hannan was for his teams. As shown above, Mitchell never led his team in ice time, and Hannan did that 5 times.

Mitchell spent the first part of his career with the Jacques Lemaire-coached Minnisota Wild. While he was a part of their defensive success, the team's system was easily the top reason for the team's success.

His next stop was Vancouver, who pretty much had a stacked team from front to back. Their defense and goaltending was especially good. Once again the team played a defense-first system. The blueline was prety much a 4-man platoon.

His most recent stop as LA; another defense-first team where he was not "the guy".


With all that said, Willie Mitchell is still among the very elite of the defensive defenseman in this MLD. He's just not nearly as good as that chart shows. He has been in a lot of good situations.

True.

Mitchell - 5 times
Hannan - 8 times

Mitchell is slow, so I can see why he wouldn't be under consideration for big ice (whether or not he should is a different question). So is Hannan, but he played in a World Cup on NA ice. If there had been a World Cup in say, 2008, he should absolutely have been there based on quality of play (not that Hockey Canada always takes that into account.)

He has a Gold Puck (Elitserien MVP), not a Golden Stick.

Stacked? Mitchell's first two years (his best) on Vancouver were on weak teams that couldn't score at all. Mitchell spent a lot of his time covering for Bieksa, who's tough and can score, but is an adventure defensively. The Canucks weren't stacked until Mitchell left.

I think leading a team in ice time can be misleading in a direct comparison as it's not about the most minutes necessarily but the toughest minutes.

Maybe not stacked like a dynasty, but Willie Mitchell's Vanouver days were as part of an excellent team. In his 4 years, Vancouver won their division 3 times, topped 100 points 3 times, and averaged 99 points over the 4 seasons.

Their defense consisted of Mitchell, Ohlund, Salo, and Bieksa. It added Edler about half way through. At the end Ehrhoff replaced Ohlund. There isn't a big-time #1 guy, but that's a very deep defense core, which is why I'm saying Mitchell wasn't as impactful as that chart suggests. Once Ohlund left, Mitchell was their go-to shut-down guy, but there was still a lot of support there.

That doesn't even count the impact of elite level goaltending and a defensive system.

Willie Mitchell and Scott Hannan were in the exact same roles. Neither played signicant PP time. Both guys played a lot of PK and tough match-up minutes.

OK.

21 out of a possible 130. (you’re referring to 2009 all-star voting, 130 voters submitted 6 names each)

You really have to say it to yourself to understand how insignificant it is…. “21 of 130 voters thought he was top-6 in the league”. That’s not strong enough evidence to conclude he was truly 10th-best.

A higher percentage of republicans think Obama is not American. 21 of 130 is a fringe opinion.

Granted.

But it’s hard to deny that low GAAs seem to follow him around wherever he plays, too.

That’s a fair statement.

Let me just add that I do think Hannan is a lot better than a lot of defensemen selected before him here.

Because he’s modern and because we know better. You saw the whole conversation in the round 1 series, I’m sure.

I don’t think it’s that easy to “write off” that record. The top of the list is dominated by HHOFers who are universally agreed to be excellent defensively, plus “specialists” who are nowhere near the top of anyone’s all-time lists, but whom people like us correctly regard as some of the finest defensive defensemen ever – Bill Hajt, Mike Ramsay, Bill White, Jim Schoenfeld, Jamie Macoun, etc.

It sounds a little strange to suggest that he benefitted from good situations when practically every other name on that list appears to belong, and made their situations better, and not the reverse.

That is a good point.

“most” often means “toughest” though, so in the absence of more detailed info it is at least a reasonable proxy. In approximating who had the toughest minutes we can also do things like remove PP time (which I did), and use the reputations of the players themselves as evidence.

I am pretty sure that Mitchell has been his team’s go-to player defensively going back to 2003.

(but then, that may also be the case with Hannan)

Good point about the big vs small ice surface.


Here are Vancouver's GA rankings in the seasons surrounding Mitchell's time there:

2003-04: 12th
2005-06: 14th
2006-07: 5th (Canucks bring in Luongo, Vigneault, and Willie Mitchell. Team save % goes from .900 to .941)
2007-08: 7th
2008-09: 7th
2009-10: 10th (Mitchell's last season in Vancouver)
2010-11: 1st
2011-12: 4th

Agree, but Mitchell and Hannan both saw the toughest minutes on their teams. If you want to rank Mitchell a little higher because you think his results were a little better, that's fine. But we aren't talking an enormous gap in effectiveness, I don't think.

Maybe we're just talking about semantics at this point, then. I don't think it's enormous, either, though I disagreed with the term "only slightly".

Nobody is writing it off, but we are trying to put some kind of contect aound it.

He absolutely did benefit from good situations. There really is no denying that fact. The problem is tryig to determine how much he it affected his numbers.

Only a fool would conclude that whowever finished 6th in AS voting was always the 6th best defenseman in the league, whoever finished 7th was always the 7th best, etc. And frankly, the fact that you keep claiming I am doing that is insulting.

Writers are a diverse group and the fact that 21 of them throught Streit was a top 6 defenseman is meaningful. No, it doesn't mean he was exactly the 10th best defenseman in the league.

If you don't think the fact that 16% of the Professional Hockey Writers association thought Streit was a top 6 defenseman (despite the fact that his team didn't make the playoffs!) is "statistically significant," then I really don't now what to say. To me, that's a significant number of people

The "finishes" listings like I did is just shorthand.

I could list the ways this is a godawful analogy, but I'll start with two: 1) look at the voting pool and who they are voting on. Republicans are more biased against Democrats more than the Professional Hockey Writers Association is biased towards members of the New York Islanders. 2) I am assuming that accredited members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association are more informed as to what happens in the NHL than the average member of the public (and anyone can call themselves a Republican or Democrat) is about politics.

I strongly disagree with the insinuation that the Professional Hockey Writers Association is no more informed about the NHL than the general public is about anything. They are "professionals" voting on their one specific area of expertise.

I think it's a fair statement that Mitchell was a great team player and great defensive defenseman, so he was the kind of guy defense-first teams wanted. Remember, he was drafted by NJ and brought up in the NJ system, so in 2001, Jacques Lemaire (now with Minnesota) knew exactly when he was getting.


Agree and I think the same about Mitchell.


Seriously, what do you mean "he's modern and we know better?" If you mean he isn't as good as his offensive numbers and votes indicated, I have strongly disagreed in the past and will continue to strongly disagree. IMO, Streit's 2008-09 and 2009-10 seasons are incredibly underrated, based both on stats vs his teammates and what I saw.


What makes Jamie Macoun better than Willie Mitchell (or some other defensemen in this series) other than playing when we were all kids so we have fonder memories of him?

LIke I said, I give Mitchell some credit for being part of all those great teams. That's one reason I think he is slightly better than Hannan, despite the fact that Hannan was more relied on by teams that were better overall (as opposed to just better defensively). The other reason is I remember Mitchell featuring prominently in polls for "best pure shutdown defenseman" or something like that back when he was in Minnesota.

Top 4 defense

One thing that I like about this Zambia team is that we really don't have a dropoff from the first to the second pairing. They are more like a 1A/1B pairing with Buswell/Green used more offensively and Dvorak/Young used more defensively. As such, I think we have an advantage over Connecticut, since they do have a dropoff on the second pairing.

I'm going to start by comparing Zambia's 2nd pairing to Connecticut's 1st pair, since I think it's an easier comparison.

Dvorak vs Eldebrink: I already did this one. In the absence of further information about Eldebrink, I think they are about equal in value. Eldebrink is better offensively, Dvorak is tougher and more balanced.

Young vs. Jonsson. How do you even begin to compare them? Young had a much better NHL career, but Jonsson's most impressive accolades were outside the NHL. Young was captain of Detroit's back to back Cups in the 1930s and was a major factor in one of them. Jonsson was a major factor in 2 International tournaments, one of them best-on-best. Their skillsets are very similar - both defense-first guys who could provide adequate offensive support, both more finesse players, but neither a big hitter.

Overall, I think Dvorak-Young and Eldebrink-Jonsson are close in talent. Eldebrink-Jonsson is much more offensively talented (because of Eldebrink), Dvorak-Young is much more physical (because of Dvorak) and is better defensively.

I think Mike Green vs. Eldebrink is another interesting comparison. Both offense-first guys - Green is probably more extremely biased towards offense, but is also better at it. Johnsson is probably more balanced that Buswell, who is bigger and stronger. They seem to have fairly similar credentials (Buswell was captain of the Canadiens for a season in addition to what I listed above).

First conclusion: Zambia's top 2 defensive pairs play very different roles (because of Mike Green mostly), but they are both similar in talent and accolades to Connecticut's top pair.

Zambia has the advantage because our second pair is better.

I like Willie Mitchell. I think he should be a bottom pairing guy in the main draft. But I'd say the same thing about Walt Buswell or Doug Young. Mitchell is a defensive defenseman in an era where defensemen need to put up offensive numbers to get recognition, so his lack of All Star votes is completely forgivable. He might even be better than Buswell or Young at pure defense. But in terms of overall impact at even strength, I just can't see Mitchell being any better than defense-first defensemen Buswell, Young, Dvorak (or Kenny Johnsson). Better defensively? Maybe. Better in terms of overall goal differential (taking into account offense, defense, and TRANSITION AND PUCK POSSESSION abilities)? I highly doubt it. I think all these defensemen are in the same class of players.

Why is Zambia's second pairing better? Because Dave Maloney isn't as good as the other defensmen. If Mitchell = Buswell, then Mike Green is simply a much more impactful player than Dave Maloney. If Mitchell = Young, then Dvorak is simply a much more impactful player than Dave Maloney. This is Maloney's description from Joe Pelletier:

Second conclusion: Connecticut's second defensive pair is weaker than either of Zambia's top two pairs, mainly because of Maloney.

I hate trashing Maloney, who was a good defenseman, but he's a definite MLDer. In my opinion, any of Walt Buswell, Doug Young, Miroslav Dvorak, Kenny Jonsson, or Willie Mitchell could easily find himself as a bottom pairing defensive guy in the main draft. Eldebrink and Green have the talent to play on the bottom pairing of the main draft as offensive ringers, but probably should fall to the MLD as #1 puck movers based on skillset (at least Green should).

Maloney is fine, a typical solid MLD defenseman, but the other 7 guys in our top 4s are better than that.

Overall conclusion: Zambia has 4 defensemen who are elite for the MLD, Connecticut has 3 defensemen who are elite for the MLD. Dave Maloney is a solid MLD defenseman, but he isn't up to the very high standard of the other 7. So Zambia has a better overall top 4.

Yeah, that Obama/American-Streit reference might literally be the worst thing I've ever read on the ATD board, seventies.

OK.

Here’s the thing – posting a 10th in Norris voting does imply “10th best defenseman”, and maybe it’s just me, but if you don’t believe it then maybe you shouldn’t post it.

As I’ve said before when going around and around in circles with you, I agree that for older players this has to be a bigger piece of the puzzle of evaluation, but for me it’s very small for modern players… so, so small.

I think you disagree on that though.

Sorry to get you guys all wound up about this. I should have used something that wasn’t so politically charged. The point was that 16% is a very low percentage to be used as proof of anything. To break it down further, the last I heard was that probably twice that percentage of republicans still don’t believe Obama is American, and that is considered a “fringe opinion” and the idea that Streit was a top-6 defenseman in 2009 was even less prevalent than that notion. It shouldn’t be relevant whether this was a comparison between opinions arrived at through vastly different degrees of expertise, only which percentage of people arrived at them.

Please clarify; are you saying he should have finished higher, then?

Also, I notice that how horrible his teams were seems to be used as a positive for him, which is the opposite of how we usually treat players – “yeah, he was their #1, but look how much they sucked!” or “yeah, he was their #1, but who else was going to take that ice time?”… Both the above phrases look like they’d apply to Streit on the Isles, but it is a positive instead. Can you please explain?

It’s definitely not romanticism, although if you had asked me 30 months ago I’d have probably said “nothing”. What I’ve learned is that the empirical evidence does go in his favour; I have no doubt about that.

#1 on his team in ES icetime something like 9 times. Strong teams that made long playoff runs. SIGNIFICANTLY better skater and puck mover than Mitchell, and a much bigger factor offensively. Also had a mean streak that Mitchell didn’t have.

Absolutely.

Even with over 1000 markrander87 posts? And BB getting drunk, drafting a stadium and bragging about his sexual conquests? Or BillyShoe giving his team the advantage at every single position in his team comparisons? Come on! :laugh:

Maybe to people who don't understand how votes are tabulated.

Maybe it is just you.

I will continue posting voting rankings as a starting point for analysis, thank you very much.
It's definitely a bigger piece of the puzzle for me. I don't watch a large enough sample size of all 30 teams and the aggregate votes of the writers are a great estimate as to what their collective opinion is.

Here's a simple question: Do you think the Professional Hockey Writers Association is more informed about the current NHL seasons they are covering than the average member of the American public is about politics?

Are you seriously arguing that levels of expertise and bias that go into forming an opinion don't matter?


I told you when you brought this up last time that I think Streit should have finished higher in 2008-09 than he actually did. I'm certainly not the only one who thinks this, either.

It's very simple - it's incredibly difficult for a defenseman or goalie to get recognition playing on a non-playoff team. See this thread: http://hfboards.hockeysfuture.com/sh...d.php?t=857470

Maybe we missed someone, but it appears that since Tim Horton in 1968, no Norris finalist has been on a team that missed the playoffs.



I guess offense is something he has over Mitchell. Playoffs too maybe.

Since 70s can't believe I think Streit should have finished higher in voting in 2008-09 than he actually did (despite the fact that I already said this and defended my position in the draft thread), here's a link to a thread on HOH called "Norris Trophy & The Playoffs": http://hfboards.hockeysfuture.com/sh...d.php?t=857470

The thread starts:

The only instances of a Norris finalist from a non-playoff team anyone found:

Streit's 2008-09 was specifically mentioned twice in the thread as a season that may have been underrated by voters:



Anyway, I plan on doing a brief look at the bottom pairings today or tomorrow, and will be comparing Streit to Olausson. After that, I'll be done talking about our #5 defenseman.

This is a good point....Dammit. lol