ATD2018 - Draft Thread 1

[ImporterExporter]

I'm posting a new draft thread. I'm around a lot so I can handle the OP duties. Give me a few minutes.

 

[BenchBrawl]

I'm posting a new draft thread. I'm around a lot so I can handle the OP duties. Give me a few minutes.

Very much appreciated, man.

 

[overpass]

Setting: A reception room in the Chateau Laurier hotel in Ottawa. The general manager of the Ottawa Senators addresses the media.

GM overpass: With the 97th pick in the 2018 All Time Draft, the Ottawa Senators have selected early era scoring star Joe Malone. Please see the package for the press that our press officer is passing out. Our researchers have really gone above and beyond this time and collected a lot of new material on Malone, including a lot of game summaries on the BanQ website from the Quebec Chronicle.

We all know that Malone was an amazing scorer in the early days of hockey, with several records that still stand to this day. However, his legacy beyond the statistics has been largely forgotten. As outlined by Claude Larochelle of the Chronicle, the Quebec Bulldogs were a team of the Anglo establishment in the Ancient Capital and were never really embraced by francophones. As a result they have been forgotten in the nearly 100 years since they ceased play, and in many cases only the statistics remain. We’d like to bring this player’s game to life and help show what made Joe Malone such a great hockey player. Of course you will have the opportunity to see him play in the upcoming ATD season as well.

Let’s just review some quotes about his games, starting with his scoring ability.

• …What set "Phantom" Joe Malone apart from the rest was an ability to find openings and weave his way through the defensive alignments of the opposition. Deceptively quick, Malone was the fastest player in the pros and possessed a lethal instinct around the net.
• "I didn't have the hardest shot in the world," (Malone) said "but I knew where it was going most of the time. You can't say as much for the slap shot. With the old wrist shot you looked where you were shooting, trying to pick your spots. With the slap the player has to keep his eye on the puck, like in golf, or you're liable to fan the shot entirely.
• One thing Joe could do was put the puck in the net. As we recall him he skated with his feet fairly wide apart, was hard to knock off balance, was always in the right place at the right time and had a hard and accurate shot.
• His son John responds: “To score so many goals, he had to have a good shot. It was formidable and with incredible precision. That was his main asset. But he was also a superb stickhandler.”
• “He might have been the most prolific scorer of all time if they had played more games in those days,” said Frank J. Selke, the former Canadiens managing director who remembered Malone as a young professional. “It was amazing the way Joe used to get himself in position to score. In that respect his style was similar to Gordie Howe’s.

And his stickhandling.

• Malone, remembered as a tricky stickhandler,
• He and (O) were probably the outstanding stickhandlers of their day. But unlike (O), who used a short stick and nursed the puck along almost between his skates, Malone swept through the opposition with long, swinging strides. He was a left hand shot.
• His stickhandling was a regular exhibition and he received frequent applause from the fans.
• His hockey stick was like a thing alive, for it poked its way between skates and under falling players in a way which brought Malone the puck every time. He wiggled his way through the roughest scrimmages and always brought up in front of the Wanderers net.

Malone’s combination play

• Malone scored only one, but his unselfish passing was a great factor in the scoring of the others.
• Malone, for instance, scored less goals in the last match than in those previous, but he never played a more useful game and the way he got the front line together and fed his wings was a treat to watch. That is the kind of game that tells.
• In the last few matches, Malone has done wonders in bettering the team play of the Quebecers.
• Joe Malone played one of the best and most unselfish games of his career and kept his line together with great skill.
• To him more than anyone must go the direct credit of the victory as he not only got the goals when they were needed but kept his line together splendidly and played a tireless and absolutely unselfish game from start to finish.
• Joe Malone played a most useful game helping in the scoring of a couple of goals and scoring one and if he had an even break in luck might have scored a dozen.
• “Joe” Malone, (C), and (R) make up a well-balanced forward line, break away together and pass unselfishly. Malone is just now playing his oldtime game—can more be said?
• (R)…with Joe Malone worked some of the prettiest combination seen here since the days of the (P) to (J) duet.

His checking ability.

• He had a fine poke-check, and like Nighbor, used a long stick to break up opposing attacks.
• Time after time he robbed the visitors with the peculiar swoop of his
• Joe never plays the man. It is always the puck. He takes an awful lot of hard checking but always worries through somehow.
• Malone was all over the place Tuesday, carrying the puck, checking back, or backing up his own forwards.
• the Quebec centre never checked back with better results and that wide swoop of his robbed one Tecumseh man after another.
• He not only worried the Canadien defence to distraction, but robbed forward after forward of the puck when they tried to break away.
• He glided over the ice phantom-like in the heavy mist. His ghost-like figure seemed to be in front of every Wanderer skater and never did he fail to steal the rubber from an opponent.
• Malone played beautiful hockey for Quebec. He made a hare of (P) time and again and his long swoop was playing havoc with (O) and (M)s combined efforts.
• Malone showed his old-time ability to check back and he kept Nighbor at bay during the whole evening.
• (K) not showing his usual effective manner, Malone stealing the rubber from him whenever he took the notion.
• He checked effectively also and was just the Malone of old who always got Newsy’s goat.

And his clutch scoring ability.

• ...and it is often when things look most critical that he comes to the rescue. Witness the goal he scored in the last few seconds of the famous match at Ottawa last year which was the means of getting Quebec the championship when the spectators were getting ready to leave the rink under the impression that the Senators had won the victory.
• Once again Joe Malone came to the rescue and pulled the game out of the fire when in the last period he beat down Canadiens’ lead half-way through the period and flashed through again thirty seconds later with the winning shot, which lodged the puck in the top corner of the net while Vezina stood helpless. To him more than anyone must go the direct credit of the victory as he not only got the goals when they were needed...

Charles L. Coleman named Malone as one of the forwards on his 1893-1926 all-star team, and The Hockey News rated him at #39 on their Top 100 list in 1998. Any questions?

Only Dink Carroll is left. All other reporters have left.

Carroll: I’m afraid everyone left a long time ago when they got their quotes. You went on a bit too long. I just stuck around because you were kind enough to quote me.

GM overpass: Thanks for staying Dink. Any questions?

Carroll: Will you play Malone at centre with Gordie Howe? Frank Selke said Malone played a similar style to Howe. Or at left wing, where he combined so well with Nighbor when he scored 44 goals?

GM overpass: Any decisions about lines and positions will be made by our coach. It certainly helps that Malone was successful at centre and on the wing, and we know he can play either position. Anything else?

Carroll: Yes. For those with questions about Malone due to the era he played in: “They were all great players in the eras they played in, which means they would have been great in any era. The requirements for stardom are always the same: mechanical ability, the competitive urge, and courage.

GM overpass: Well, thanks for the support. I liked that paragraph when you wrote it in the Gazette, too.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Incredible job overpass.

 

[ImporterExporter]

OK, new thread is up! Can a mod please sticky it up top and drop the old one?

@ResilientBeast @Johnny Engine

I'm waiting on another GM or two to confirm the trade between BB and myself before updating that and picking.

Thanks!

 

[BenchBrawl]

@overpass, I'd re-post this in the new thread