I have no idea why anyone would play Bobby Holik at LW, but he's capable of doing it. Edit: Meaning that much of his defensive ability lies in his faceoffs and ability to physically dominate the opposing center - though I guess he could physically dominate the opposing right wing in theory.
He's an excellent shut down center at even strength, especially against large centers. I can't think of a recent center I'd rather have match up against Jean Beliveau at even strength than Holik.
Just don't try to use him on the PK - he's too slow.
He will take a lot of the faceoffs, Derek Sanderson was also capable of playing left wing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Who's Who in Hockey, Stan Fischler
BORN: Niagara Falls, Dntario, June 16, 1946 POSITION: Center/Left Wing, ... media coverage could be translated into talent, Derek Sanderson would have been ..
Quote:
Derek Sanderson, the brawling center who is one of the most flamboyant and ... With the Rangers, playing mostly at center and occasionally at left wing,
I don't think moving him to the wing affects his assets as much as it affects Holik, although Sanderson is good as faceoffs, he was a tenacious forechecker and can keep up with the top lines'.
I think I'll have Holik as the third line centre and have Sanderson as one of my top-flite PK centres, where faceoffs will be crucial. Do you like the move from centre to left wing for Sanderson?
Coaches and players are able to make adjustments, and the best coaches were able to bring their systems to the personnel they had, rather than vice-versa. I don't see why tony's team couldn't potentially play Burns or Sather hockey.
This is true, do think some players suit a coaches preference better than others, but they all need to be able to adapt to be successful.
Even in the case of someone like Arbour, who was another guy who
preferred to have a defensively responsible team even during an early 80s dynasty --- Arbour was the coach for a GM who believed in constructing the team so that it could beat a team based on speed, a team based on finesse and a physical team to win the Cup.
You're not going to face the same type of team each round of playoffs so you have to be able to adapt your team to the circumstances no matter what your preference and personnel.
With our 15th selection, the 462nd overall pick, l'équipe nationale de France est fier de sélectionner, from Chapleau, Canada, two-way, playoff extraordinaire Floyd Curry, RW.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheDevilMadeMe
Hap Holmes is a guy who can really use a good bio. All I know about him is that he won a lot of Cups, is in the HHOF, and wasn't considered as good as Hugh Lehman (who didn't win a lot of Cups).
agree
hap holmes reached the finals 7 times of 16 seasons, even with 4 different teams. that is probably not a coincidence.
'14 toronto blueshirts
'17 seattle
'18 toronto arenas
'19 seattle
'20 seattle
'25 victoria
'26 victoria
Continuing the conversation with 70's about this tier of defensemen, I think the best of the guys you mentioned is Barry Beck. Here are his AST places:
I remember Beck best from the season he got those Hart votes. He had come into New York in a deal where a bunch of players went the other way, and was immediately annointed "Da Savya", much as Carol Vadnais had carried that mantle before him. Beck did very well in the season in which he was traded, but then stumbled in his second year as a Ranger, and was immediately chastised by the New York fans and press. "Shoot the puck, Barry!", and all that fun stuff. In the offseason, the Rangers signed a little Finnish offensive defenseman named Reijo [can't spell it], and put him with Barry on the top pairing. The pairing clicked immediately, and Beck and "Plex" (Reijo had a habit of shooting the puck off the plexiglass behind the goal) were one of the best pairings in the league. If Barry hadn't gotten banged up and missed some games, I think he would have been a Norris finalist that year. He had a very strong peak, though injuries limited him to really only seven healthy seasons.
This whole tier of defensemen has been historically underrated in the ATD, and I think Beck, Bergman and Vadnais are comparable to guys drafted several rounds ahead of them.
Beck was the guy I was initially trying to trade up and pick before BB snagged him. The one thing I was concerned about Beck was his history with injuries. I'm not sure who has Boivin so it's nothing personally, but from AS voting records and Norris placements he seems like he's more in line with the Beck, Bergman (Who was 2nd on my list behind Vadnais) and Vadnais group.
I'm not sure who has Boivin so it's nothing personally, but from AS voting records and Norris placements he seems like he's more in line with the Beck, Bergman (Who was 2nd on my list behind Vadnais) and Vadnais group.
Which isn't an insult to Leo Boivin.
I think at least up until now, the value of non-elite defensemen (especially defensive defensemen) had become quite ossified and stale in the ATD. We lacked any good, clear way of objectively comparing them to one another, and so their relative values became simple matters of tradition, and those values tended to be badly skewed in favor of guys who were in the HHOF (Boivin), guys who had won a lot of Cups (Baun), and guys we had seen (Lowe and McCrimmon). Kevin Lowe and Brad McCrimmon and Leo Boivin and Bob Baun go in the top-300 because they have always gone in the top-300, and Gary Bergman and Barry Beck and Carol Vadnais go much later for the same reason.
Now that we have the complete voting records, however, it would be foolish not to take a sharp knife to the traditional rankings and see how much blood comes out.
With selection #463, Inglewood selects coach (and apparent mafioso judging by his picture):
Cecil Hart
Hart coached the Canadiens to five first-place finishes and two championships in his 9 year tenure, and employs the up-tempo skating style that I'm looking for with my squad.
The thing about Beck is, although I said he was in that tier for sure, I would hesitate to say he's at the head of that class. I am on my phone right now and don't have the data, but I seem to remember thinking some of his allstar recognition was not fully deserved and/or reputation-based - he was not even his team's #1 minute munching defenseman.
Vadnais' allstar record is almost as good, was probably attained more honestly, and his non allstar seasons were still good minute munching years.
Speaking of not deserving allstar votes.... I think I remember discovering Magnuson was never more than a #4 on Chicago, yet earned votes for the allstar teams, probably thanks to his immense popularity.
I said it last draft, and I will repeat it again. There is very little difference between some (though not all) of the #4 defensemen drafted in round seven and some of the ones drafted in round 15. Maybe if people start paying more attention to these numbers (which are the best performance metric we have for defensemen, but especially for defensive defensemen) we will see some large and appropriate changes in value in ATD2013.
People need to pay attention to these numbers which they aren't but they also need to put them in context of the times which I'm not sure you're doing. Post-expansion, writers began to rely quite a bit on traditional hockey card stats when handing out award because nobody could possibly watch every team many teams. So the fact that Lowe and McCrimmon got any votes at all as defensive defenseman is mighty impressive, much more impressive than a more offensively oriented defenseman like Beck or Vadnais who had a similar record
Baun and Harper were defensive guys too but peaked before expansion
Last edited by TheDevilMadeMe: 02-25-2012 at 11:06 AM.
The thing about Beck is, although I said he was in that tier for sure, I would hesitate to say he's at the head of that class. I am on my phone right now and don't have the data, but I seem to remember thinking some of his allstar recognition was not fully deserved and/or reputation-based - he was not even his team's #1 minute munching defenseman.
Barry was generally good for about 10 missed games/season during his prime, so it is possible that this led to him not being the top defenseman on his team in minutes a few times, though I can tell you with certainty that he was "the #1" (in terms of how good he was) in New York until he blew out his shoulder in 1984, and I somehow doubt that this wasn't the case in Colorado.
Don't you think the fact that Vadnais' best AST years were as a 2nd pairing defenseman sheltered behind Orr is also a little questionable? I don't care about his ATOI. I care that he obviously wasn't taking the hard matchups at even-strength, and struggled in New York when asked to do so.
Anyway, I know you like your minutes numbers, but unless they are pretty extreme, I think it is a thin reed to draw conclusions like "x was overrated based on reputation" based solely on his ATOI. I would be interested to see the numbers for Beck.
People need to pay attention to these numbers which they aren't but they also need to put them in context of the times which I'm not sure you're doing. Post-expansion, writers began to rely quite a bit on traditional hockey card stats when handing out award because nobody could possibly watch every team many teams. So the fact that Lowe and McCrimmon got any votes at all as defensive defenseman is mighty impressive, much more impressive than a more offensively oriented defenseman like Beck or Vadnais who had a similar record.
While I agree with this in principal and it partially applies to Lowe, there is not much offensive difference between Beck and McCrimmon at their respective peaks. Also, Lowe got a lot of exposure by playing in Edmonton. I don't know that I buy the argument that Lowe's AST voting record is an unfair reflection of his performance. That is a good argument for a guy like Dave Burrows, but not really Kevin Lowe, IMO.
Anyway, I know you like your minutes numbers, but unless they are pretty extreme, I think it is a thin reed to draw conclusions like "x was overrated based on reputation" based solely on his ATOI. I would be interested to see the numbers for Beck.
Agree 100%. Ice time numbers are a useful tool, but small differences in ice time do not overcome reputation.
I'm very against ranking defensemen as #1, #2, #3 based off ice time. Just show the damn ice time number. If "#1" is playing 23.5 minutes and. "#3" is playing 23 minutes, it's basically no difference at all
With selection #463, Inglewood selects coach (and apparent mafioso judging by his picture):
Cecil Hart
Hart coached the Canadiens to five first-place finishes and two championships in his 9 year tenure, and employs the up-tempo skating style that I'm looking for with my squad.
Good pick for a Gretzky-led team. Right up there with Sather and Badger Bob as offensive-minded coaches go
Barry was generally good for about 10 missed games/season during his prime, so it is possible that this led to him not being the top defenseman on his team in minutes a few times, though I can tell you with certainty that he was "the #1" (in terms of how good he was) in New York until he blew out his shoulder in 1984, and I somehow doubt that this wasn't the case in Colorado.
Don't you think the fact that Vadnais' best AST years were as a 2nd pairing defenseman sheltered behind Orr is also a little questionable? I don't care about his ATOI. I care that he obviously wasn't taking the hard matchups at even-strength, and struggled in New York when asked to do so.
Anyway, I know you like your minutes numbers, but unless they are pretty extreme, I think it is a thin reed to draw conclusions like "x was overrated based on reputation" based solely on his ATOI. I would be interested to see the numbers for Beck.
I was talking about Beck's ATOI, not TTOI, so I don't think missed games are a factor here (unless you mean he had a lot of games where he was being eased back into the lineup, killing his average) I can get into this more later. But Vadnais had two seasons as Boston's 2nd most used defenseman, with a huge edge on #3. It appears it was a clear case of the true #2 defenseman playing on the 2nd pairing. I also don't believe in making a big deal over small differences (particularly differences within the margin of era for these numbers).
I could be wrong about Beck too, I am going from memories of past research.
Agree 100%. Ice time numbers are a useful tool, but small differences in ice time do not overcome reputation.
I'm very against ranking defensemen as #1, #2, #3 based off ice time. Just show the damn ice time number. If "#1" is playing 23.5 minutes and. "#3" is playing 23 minutes, it's basically no difference at all
And if the numbers are estimated, you can't even be sure if estimated 23.5 actually > estimated 23.
So the fact that Lowe and McCrimmon got any votes at all as defensive defenseman is mighty impressive, much more impressive than a more offensively oriented defenseman like Beck or Vadnais who had a similar record.
I will add that I have never really bought this argument when used for Derian Hatcher, either. Maybe for the first few years of his prime, but certainly not for the latter part. Those Stars teams were consistently among the league's best, and Hatcher got a ton of exposure during that period. I think the "AST voting underrates him" argument is legit for defensive defensemen on bad teams, but otherwise, it is a pretty weak argument.
Kevin Lowe is actually a perfect example of a good team defensive defenseman who did get AST credit for what he was doing. I mean...Lowe was a fine defenseman, but I would be hard-pressed to call him better than the voting numbers indicate. The best players at all positions tend to be effective going both ways. There is no doubt that, since expansion, pure offensive defensemen have fared better in AST voting than pure defensive defensemen - this is a clear distortion, and I do not believe, for example, that Phil Housley was really a better hockey player than Kevin Lowe.
But I don't believe, at all, that defensive defensemen have been underrated in comparison to guys who were two-way players. When this line of thinking gets to the point of aggrandizing a guy like McCrimmon in comparison to a guy like Beck (who was good for maybe 10 points/season more than McCrimmon, on average), I think it has outlived its usefulness.
With our 15th selection, the 462nd overall pick, l'équipe nationale de France est fier de sélectionner, from Chapleau, Canada, two-way, playoff extraordinaire Floyd Curry, RW.
Thanks Nik for announcing my pick. I'm very happy to get Floyd Curry, someone I almost took over Jacques Lemaire, because just like Lemaire, I couldn't find an 'just as good' replacement for him. Yes, I got him last draft for the exact same role, but I never really finished his biography, which I will do this time around. He brings a solid two-way game, while just like his linemate, bring a solid offensive contribution in the playoff.
Nick Metz - Ralph Backstrom - Floyd Curry
I can create different kind of teams draft after draft, but one constant is that I will always have a pretty good third line ... Cannot be comfortable without it!
Good pick for a Gretzky-led team. Right up there with Sather and Badger Bob as offensive-minded coaches go
Yeah, I had Hart and Sather rated equally, although I would have gone with Sather just because of the obvious Gretzky connection. Really happy with Hart though.
It may just be coincidence, but Howie Morenz's game was clearly better under Hart's regime than with his other coaches. So he definitely knew how to use a superstar centre.
Yeah, I had Hart and Sather rated equally, although I would have gone with Sather just because of the obvious Gretzky connection. Really happy with Hart though.
It may just be coincidence, but Howie Morenz's game was clearly better under Hart's regime than with his other coaches. So he definitely knew how to use a superstar centre.
My impression is that the other coach tried to play a defensive system, which Morenz wasn't suited for
