seventieslord
Student Of The Game
Nearly equal is not the same as equal. As shown earlier, Orillia has an offensive edge on both the top two lines.
Most importantly, Regina relies very heavily on one player to create a huge amount of their offense... and Orillia has the guys in match-up positions to slow him down significantly.
Again (assuming Lindsay's scores are reflective of his talent and assuming Foyston is equally effective at RW, both of which seem rather dubious), that's great that you got yourself a set of VsX scores that are 2% better all things considered, but that doesn't mean your lines work better than ours. There's more to line building than just assembling three good VsX scores.
As I said before, size is already accounted into these players' legacies. Being big made them what they were, so double-counting it seems off.
That's not the way this works. We still draft players with a consideration to their attributes, strengths and weaknesses - if we could just treat each player as an overall "sum of parts" package there would be no team building aspect to this. But there is - as the GMs, we must make sure we don't take too many similar players, take players who complement eachother well and don't leave the team deficient in any area. Unfortunately, the way we both built our teams, it's just a big physical mismatch.
Well, for starters, if you're on the PK, there's a good chance it's Joe Hall in the box.
good one. But no, it's not like the guy's giving you two powerplays each game, let's be realistic.
Second, going to the net has nothing to do with beating up guys like Joe Hall. All I have to do is go to the front of the net. From there, I keep the goalie in his crease, and also obstruct the goalie's view.
The whole idea of a "net presence" is kind of silly. Anyone can be a net presence... just go stand there.
I don't expect you to have a player who can "beat up" Joe Hall, either. But you do need someone with the size and/or strength and/or courage to stand there and take a pounding. You're right that obstructing the goalie is important, but the one guy with size on the 2nd unit is also the softest forward in the series, so that's not a good matchup for you.
As a coach and a person who watches a lot of hockey, I'm really surprised that you think anyone can do this.
Yes, Regina has a better group of PK forwards on the 2nd unit. On the first unit, Orillia very clearly has the better forwards. Ramsay > Savard and Walker > Gilmour.
As a PK defenseman, I don't think there's much of an argument against Larry Robinson being the best among these groups. He was widely viewed as the best defensive defenseman of his era, and everything we know about how he played translates well to the PK.
I don't agree. This is why the first units are practically even. Robinson spent most of his career on a very dominant team, yet, was used far less on the PK than one would think and attained very good, but not "omg tha best in tha series" results... 45% is just not that much. Tom Johnson was Doug Harvey's teammate, yet was the leader of the PK and I don't need to tell you that they were an obscenely dominant team. He has a legitimate case as the best PK defenseman of the entire pre-expansion era, while the numbers for the post-expansion era would place a fair number of them ahead of Robinson, and that's even if one is charitable because of his size and style of play translating well to the PK, as you said.
Toe Blake is way better than Babcock. It's not even close really. The gap is wide.
Orillia's actual coach, Dick Irvin, is a lot closer to Babcock. It's a safe bet that Babs eventually overtakes I'm, but as of right now Irvin has the edge.
embarrassing.
Irvin is a little less fearsome.
I'm a competitor. You clearly are as well. you put up a good fight till the end. And it may not even be over yet. Best of luck to you. It was fun.