All-Time Draft #11, Part 3

[nik jr]

Nice pick. Vezina was #1 on our list for backup goalies. Not that he should be a backup; he just happened to be the best goalie remaining. Good pick.

what does "trail" say about vezina?

i have read that vezina's habs teams generally played an offensive game and vezina had to make many difficult saves.

but i think he allowed the fewest GA in NHA/NHL 7 times, about 1/2 of his career.

 

[seventieslord]

I know it says he was a really cool customer. There is probably more, too. I'm at work so I can't answer that better. However, he is pretty much the consensus 2nd-best goalie of that 1910-1926 period that Benedict dominated. Knowing where to slot him among goalies is difficult because all you know is he belongs below Benedict and above others of the time, but no one knows how to rank Benedict so it snowballs from there.

 

[seventieslord]

...Actually, I should also add that Hap Holmes is arguably as good as Vezina too.

 

[nik jr]

i generally do not even try to rank goalies i have never seen, especially not if they played at different times.
i do not see any good way to decide whether plante was better than hasek, or durnan better than dryden, or vezina better than esposito.

i read about hap holmes when ADC and i drafted frank foyston, and he seems to have been very good, but i think he was not usually 1st AS in PCHA, even when there were only 3 or 4 teams.

i think holmes has a better playoff record than the other player who usually was 1st AS, though.

 

[Nalyd Psycho]

i generally do not even try to rank goalies i have never seen, especially not if they played at different times.
i do not see any good way to decide whether plante was better than hasek, or durnan better than dryden, or vezina better than esposito.

i read about hap holmes when ADC and i drafted frank foyston, and he seems to have been very good, but i think he was not usually 1st AS in PCHA, even when there were only 3 or 4 teams.

i think holmes has a better playoff record than the other player who usually was 1st AS, though.

That's exactly it. Holmes was probably nothing special in the regular season. But his playoff record is impeccable. Which is why he more readily compares to players like Fuhr, Smith and Cheevers.

 

[arrbez]

OK, so you've made no secret of who you think the worst starting goalie is. Its funny, if a goalie won the Hart, was runner-up another time, and 4th in voting a third time, in the 70s, 60s, 50s, 40s, heck, even the 30s, he'd be a consensus top-half starter. But if it was the 1920s, well, then he must be the worst starting goalie. "ATD Canon" at its best.

Well, I think it's fairly obvious that Hart voting pre-1950 was much more skewed towards "most valuable player" than towards "best player", which it essentially is now. And because of this, there's a number of examples of a guy playing valiantly for a poor team winning the Hart (notably goaltenders and defensemen), which you would never see today unless it was a real down year across the league, like in 2002. Worters is a prime example of a guy who was no doubt an excellent player, but who likely had his Hart voting bumped by playing on poor teams.

So I guess it depends how you look at it. Was Worters Hart campaign Hasek-esque...probably not. It's certainly a notable accomplishment, but it just needs to be seen in a different light than we see the award now.

For the record, I think Worters is a solid starter in this. Bottom-end, but decent. If Lumley was gone, it was between him and one other guy for me. He did a lot with very little in terms of the teams he played on, and was pretty decent in the playoffs when his team made it there.

 

[Evil Sather]

The whatevers take RW Mario Tremblay.

 

[nik jr]

That's exactly it. Holmes was probably nothing special in the regular season. But his playoff record is impeccable. Which is why he more readily compares to players like Fuhr, Smith and Cheevers.

when ADC and i drafted frank foyston, i read a long article about the seattle metropolitans, which had a segment on the '17 finals.

in the 1st game, holmes struggled against pitre's shot (pitre, who was 40 years old, scored 4 goals), but after that was very good, and one of the keys to the win.

holmes after the game 1 loss:

Realizing that his poor play was partially responsible for the defeat, Holmes promised to "show up those frog-eaters Tuesday night if he ever showed up a team in his life."

in game 2, holmes almost had a SO, but the habs scored with less than 1 minute left.

game 3 was also almost a SO for holmes. habs again scored in the last minute.

in the last game, holmes allowed only 1 goal, late in the game.


something funny in the article:

players were further disheartened when Seattle sportswriters, unfamiliar with any of the teams in the Eastern league, requested player biographies for the Montreal team. "Statistics taken from the Montreal Herald, giving the individual weight of the Canadiens, indicate that the NHA pennant winners probably are the heaviest hockey team in the world," commented a Seattle Daily Times writer. With an average weight of 179 pounds compared to the Mets' average of 163 pounds, "the Canadiens loom like giants."

http://www.narhist.ewu.edu/pnf/articles/bernklow.html

 

[John Flyers Fan]

As a Flyers fan you have probably seen MacLeish 100 more times than GBC and if anything you'd be more likely to give a Flyer extra credit, yet you have said twice his defensive/shutdown ability isn't anything to write home about. I'm interested to hear what GBC has to say to this. He's pretty high on MacLeish defensively. Does he have some quotes? A clip? Some stats? (I doubt he has stats) First time I heard MacLeish was a 3rd line type was last draft when GBC drafted him.

I'm not knocking the "Hawk", he's still my mom's all-time favorite player. I just think he's best served being used as a 2nd line center, or even a 4th that can bring instant offense.

Probably the best use of his abilities would for him to be the 4th line center, on a team that has Joe Thornton as their 2nd line center. Let Joe play the big minutes during the regular season, but when the games really matter, drop Thornton from the rotation, and slide MacLeish into that spot. When the games were most important, Ricky always came to play. Led the Flyers in playoff scoring during both Cup years, and scored the only goal in the decisive 1-0 defeat of the Bruins to win the Flyers first Stanley Cup.

MacLeish wasn't bad defensively, but he was never used in any sort of shutdown role. The Flyers 4 centers were Clarke (arguably the best defensive center of all-time), MacLeish, and XXXXXX and XXXXXX. Clarke and the other two centerman (both current NHL color men) were used in defensive situations ar more than MacLeish. MacLeish was probably the most offensively gifted Flyer .. excellent skater, great wrist shot, would often carry the puck the length of the ice .... also MacLeish rarely fought, but when he did, he would often toon up an unsuspecting player.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q0NvJNJ6qM

 

[hfboardsuser]

something funny in the article:


http://www.narhist.ewu.edu/pnf/articles/bernklow.html

That reminds me of something I found when doing research on the Dynamiters.

During the '37 WCs, the tournament was hosted by England. The English team was, as they were around that time, mostly ex-pat Canadians. However, that didn't stop the organizers from writing some of the most shameless propaganda in sports history when it came to the English team bios in the program.

"Better with one eye than most with two", proclaimed one bio about a defenseman. Another player was able to "ride a bicycle for days without tiring".

 

[pitseleh]

For what it's worth (it's probably too harsh), Ultimate Hockey called Macleish the worst defensive forward of the 70s.

 

[hfboardsuser]

For what it's worth (it's probably too harsh), Ultimate Hockey called Macleish the worst defensive forward of the 70s.

But, then, LOH (and they're just as biased- they rarely say anything bad about stars) says "Over the next two season he continued to produce on offense but was asked to take on penalty killing and defensive responsibility. MacLeish's excellence was a key component on the Flyers' consecutive Stanley Cup wins in 1974 and 1975."

MacLeish did regularly kill penalties from everything I've read- his infamous on-ice accident occurred when doing it.

 

[John Flyers Fan]

For what it's worth (it's probably too harsh), Ultimate Hockey called Macleish the worst defensive forward of the 70s.

He wasn't Clarke defensively, but he was nowhere near that bad.


And for the post above, yes MacLeish did kill penalties

 

[hfboardsuser]

Just to clear things up, I don't consider MacLeish/Middleton as my shutdown line- that'd be a waste of their talents. Rather, it's a third scoring line that can over-match a lot of 2nd lines. I'm content knowing Macleish was at least a regular NHL PKer and decent defensively; Middleton won't have to cover up for him, allowing them to play their respective games.

 

[seventieslord]

i generally do not even try to rank goalies i have never seen, especially not if they played at different times.
i do not see any good way to decide whether plante was better than hasek, or durnan better than dryden, or vezina better than esposito.

Didn't you participate in the HOH top-100 project? And you've been in at least three ATDs... surely by now you must have your own way of forming an opinion about the relative greatness of one goalie versus another. Whwn you're voting on ATD series, do you just call goaltending a draw unless you've seen both or unless the two played in the same era?

By being in the ATD you are expressing the interest in ranking and analyzing players from a number of different eras... I'm just confused by this statement, that's all.

Well, I think it's fairly obvious that Hart voting pre-1950 was much more skewed towards "most valuable player" than towards "best player", which it essentially is now. And because of this, there's a number of examples of a guy playing valiantly for a poor team winning the Hart (notably goaltenders and defensemen), which you would never see today unless it was a real down year across the league, like in 2002. Worters is a prime example of a guy who was no doubt an excellent player, but who likely had his Hart voting bumped by playing on poor teams.

So I guess it depends how you look at it. Was Worters Hart campaign Hasek-esque...probably not. It's certainly a notable accomplishment, but it just needs to be seen in a different light than we see the award now.

For the record, I think Worters is a solid starter in this. Bottom-end, but decent. If Lumley was gone, it was between him and one other guy for me. He did a lot with very little in terms of the teams he played on, and was pretty decent in the playoffs when his team made it there.

All true. I agree Worters is bottom-end and I think even his GM would agree to that readily.

The thing about Worters is, unlike the other goalies who had brief glimpes of Hart-caliber play on bad teams, he is the only one to win it, and be a runner-up, and be 4th place another time. One bad-team-hart-winning-goalie was 1st and 5th; another was 1st and 2nd. Worters also was able to be the 2nd all-star team goalie twice in seasons that he wasn't in the Hart voting, and AST voting is supposed to more closely represent "best" as opposed to "most valuable". (he had four seasons before that where he was potentially an All-Star, too) The other two bad-team-hart-winning-goalies have 3 and 0 AST seasons, respectively, and one of the three was in the Hart season, giving them rough totals of four and two great seasons, to Worters' 5+. (Lumley never won it, but could almost count as a bad-team-hart-winning-goalie since he was top-5 three times. He had three AST seasons, one aside from those seasons for a rough total of four great seasons)

Not that I disagree with you at all - this just serves as an explanation for why I think Worters distances himself from the likes of those guys.

in the 1st game, holmes struggled against pitre's shot (pitre, who was 40 years old, scored 4 goals), but after that was very good, and one of the keys to the win.

Pitre was only 35 at the time.

 

[seventieslord]

But, then, LOH (and they're just as biased- they rarely say anything bad about stars) says "Over the next two season he continued to produce on offense but was asked to take on penalty killing and defensive responsibility. MacLeish's excellence was a key component on the Flyers' consecutive Stanley Cup wins in 1974 and 1975."

MacLeish did regularly kill penalties from everything I've read- his infamous on-ice accident occurred when doing it.

MacLeish had 155 PP goals scored on him during his career which is quite significant. Based on the numbers it looks like he was a top unit guy sometimes, and a second unit guy other times.

 

[nik jr]

Didn't you participate in the HOH top-100 project? And you've been in at least three ATDs... surely by now you must have your own way of forming an opinion about the relative greatness of one goalie versus another. Whwn you're voting on ATD series, do you just call goaltending a draw unless you've seen both or unless the two played in the same era?

By being in the ATD you are expressing the interest in ranking and analyzing players from a number of different eras... I'm just confused by this statement, that's all.

i was not part of the top 100.


entire process of deciding which team would win is a bit of a guess. there are far more upsets in real life than there are in ATD.

i look at the d-corps and style of play as much or more than goaltending.
style of play is not discussed as much, it seems, but is very important.

i try to make a rough estimate of how good the goalies are, basically in the same way i would with F and D, by looking at how dominant they were against their competition, but it is harder to do for G's, b/c team effects are harder to separate.

we don't know how sawchuk would have done if he had to face the production line 14 times per season for a decade.

the reason i did not participate in the top 100 is b/c i think it is too hard to decide if one player is better than another. i can't tell if brad park was better than king clancy.

ranking goalies is even harder, especially b/c it is harder to find data on the early ones.

i also think my opinions of active goalies differs more from AS and vezina voting than with voting for F and D.

Pitre was only 35 at the time.

you are right, my mistake.

 

[Nalyd Psycho]

bloody slow draft!

Anyone going to be around tonight?

 

[God Bless Canada]

Eagle has chaos' list, so Eagle can announce that pick when he gets back. chaos won't be back until tomorrow.

 

[Nalyd Psycho]

Trade with the Detroit Red Wings:

380 & 548
for
393 & 486

Spitfire to confirm.

If he declines, GBC has my list.

 

[God Bless Canada]

I'll be around all evening, in case someone needs to send a list.

 

[arrbez]

Yikes...no picks since I was on 5 hours ago.

 

[VanIslander]

379 - chaosrevolver & Boootthh - Team Soviet Union - ON THE CLOCK (one hour, 40 minutes remaining)

380 - Nalyd Psycho - Minnesota Fighting Saints
381 - nik jr. - lada togliatti
382 - ToskaLOL - Glace Bay Miners
383 - GodBlessCanada & raleh - New Westminster Bruins
384 - Leaf Lander - Toronto Maple Leafs

 

[papershoes]

with their skipped picks, the kenora thistles are pleased to add a little "swedish flair" to their roster by selecting to speedy, creative, and offensively gifted swedes.

with an open spot on gretzky and messier's wing, the thistles are pleased to add a great sniper (specifically in the wha) in...

anders hedberg (rw)

...and, with paul coffey and "russian coffey" nikolai sologubov on the roster, it seems fitting to add "swedish coffey" as well in...

lennart svedberg (d)

 

[chaosrevolver]

Im only able to get this computer for a few minutes but luckily im up.

Soviet Union select LW: Jiri Holik.

Ill be home tommorow night. Thanks guys!