Believe me when I say at both ends of the rink, the edge goes to Henrik. But Daniel is more gifted in the offensive zone, and theres no debate.
That's interesting. I've always thought of Daniel as the better defensively. They're both more solid than they get credit for in my mind (they're probably average top 6 players defensively in the ATD I would think for instance). Before looking into this pick, I had this notion that Daniel killed some penalties here and there, but I was apparently mistaken about that as well. Oh well, I didn't really draft them to play defense. They're drafted to score some goals and cycle the puck with Kerr.
I mentioned that the goal Lehman allowed in Game 5 of the 1918 Cup final was a weak one. Here are the relevant quotes from the Toronto Star, taken from my Alf Skinner bio from two drafts ago.
Quote:
For 41 minutes the rival teams had battled grimly, determinedly, cleanly, and scorelessly. Then the rotund Alfie Skinner, who had been chasing that lil’ old puck all over the ice heap and pestering the life out of every opponent who laid a stick on it, sailed down the right boards and heaved a 50-foot lob at Goalkeeper Lehmann. It looked as easy to handle as a couple of fresh eggs in a glass. In fact, it was too easy, Lehmann missed it, and Alfred did a hula-hula down the ice and tried to kiss the bad spot on Cyclone Taylor’s head, while the crowd yelled itself to a whisper.
After 41 minutes of scoreless hockey that one goal loomed up as large as an elephant at a tea party. It was as welcome as whiskey at an Irish wake...
Taking it all around the game might well have ended in a tie, for the goal Skinner got, beautifully placed and all as it was, must be regarded as somewhat lucky. Everything else from long range that came Lehmann’s way was handled with careless ease. How he managed to miss this one is the mystery of the game.
Not quite from centre ice as I had remembered, but still a weak goal.
That's from the hometown paper of the winning team. So they weren't too broken up about the goal. It would be interesting to see what the Vancouver papers said about it.
Thoughts on some draft picks, catching up.
Balon: I suspected he might end up a Gwinnett Gladiator, with the even strength goal scoring and being an early 70s Ranger.
Lesueur: No surprise here either, I expected him to go to papershoes or EagleBelfour as the starter.
Dornhoefer: I always think of his portrayal in George Plimpton's book Open Net, when Plimpton played goal in Boston's training camp as a stunt. Dornhoefer was the main bogeyman that Plimpton's Bruins "teammates" used to scare him - they portrayed him as some kind of goaltender's nightmare. Dornhoefer's actual appearance was anticlimactic - Plimpton never noticed him in the five minutes he played against Philly.
Daniel Sedin: It is weird to see him go this far after Henrik. In the past year, when l look at a list of the best NHL players, one thing I look for is to see where Daniel and Henrik rank. If Henrik is much ahead of Daniel, I know I don't rate hockey players the same way as the list author. A broken foot and 18 missed October and November games shouldn't make that much difference.
(I understand why he was taken later in this draft - not trying to say it was a bad move or anything, vecens.)
I was kind of hoping someone else would take him, to make things interesting. Daniel to Inglewood was looking like the single most predictable pick in the whole draft. I'm surprised monster_bertuzzi thought he'd be available at 600 - there was a team out there who very obviously wanted him and had an open spot at 2nd line LW.
Heh, he really wasn't that bad. More along the lines of he didn't quite meet expectations, since he was such an amazing coach.
As a Buffalo Sabres fan I can confirm that he left Buffalo as a very unpopular guy amongst the fan base. It wasn't so much the job that he did but the fact that he came off as an ego maniac, made changes seemingly just to put his stamp on the team, and treated popular players rather poorly. An example is how he publicly questioned Rick Martin's knee injury, suggesting that he was faking it. Martin spent the next two seasons painstakingly trying to mount a comeback with the Kings in an attempt to clear his good name.
Stuff like that didn't fly in Buffalo and Bowman didn't do that good of a job results-wise to override the other things. To this day my grandmother still hates his guts.
In my readings on Gorman, I can certainly understand why people passed on him! He often got himself into trouble with the other league managers, very often toeing the line of what was considered "appropriate" when speaking publicly. Nobody really knew how he coached, either. TDMM says he was a trapping coach during his Chicago cups *shrug*.
I picked Badger over him because I knew what I was getting with Badger. That being said, one article I read about Gorman spoke about how the reason his boys won the cup in Ottawa is because he "convinced his players that they were invincible".
In my readings on Gorman, I can certainly understand why people passed on him! He often got himself into trouble with the other league managers, very often toeing the line of what was considered "appropriate" when speaking publicly. Nobody really knew how he coached, either. TDMM says he was a trapping coach during his Chicago cups *shrug*.
I picked Badger over him because I knew what I was getting with Badger. That being said, one article I read about Gorman spoke about how the reason his boys won the cup in Ottawa is because he "convinced his players that they were invincible".
He absolutely was a trapping coach. He was VERY demanding defensively. That is how he coached.
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Damn, after Cherdyshev, Gorman was #1 coach on my list. I have probably the best defence of the draft while drafting a boatload of decent-to-great defensive forward. He would of been an appropriate coach on my team!
