Many thanks to seventies for the fair rebuttal and debate. Time now to look at the goaltending:
Goalies:
Felix Potvin and Hal Winkler vs. Kelly Hrudey and Earl Robertson
As evidenced by the all star voting Potvin and Hrudey are the best goalies here in the AAA draft. Both goalies had great peaks and met in the 1993 Campbell Conference final which was won by Hrudey. Hrudey and Potvin where among 5 names I had for my #1 goalie and they made the strongest cases to be selected by me so if you ask me this #1 goalie matchup is thisclose. As to Winkler vs. Robertson, that's a good battle as well. I had Robertson last year and know he was met with a high regard in that when I drafted him, so if Hrudey should go down to injury or not play well Robertson should step in and perform quite well. Hal Winkler will provide the same service for the Knights. Basically like other things in this series the goalie match is thisclose and depends on Potvin getting hot and staying hot.
I have Hrudey just a bit above Potvin in most areas. But literally just a bit. The two are pretty close in accomplishments and vital stats. However, Potvin was a little better playoff goalie. So in all honesty they are probably even in this series.
Coaching:
Both coaches where guys I had on my coaching list going into this draft so I was glad to see both get selected and see both of them get to the finals. Still I think I have the advantage in the coaching battle. Hartley always seemed to get his teams further than Sutter (4 straight West final appearances + 1 Cup Win) as well as leading Atlanta/Winnipeg to their only playoff appearance and doing a decent job in Calgary this season. Brian Sutter is no slouch either but his teams despite being talented couldn't take that next step come playoff time. Jacques Laperriere is a good assistant but that's all he is is an assistant. As I've said there's nothing wrong with Brian Sutter as a coach but Hartley's playoff record and ability to get a little more out of his teams gives the Knights the coaching advantage IMO.
I don't know about Hartley getting more out of his teams. Yes, he absolutely has had better team success but that's also because he has had better teams. If coaches were considered the biggest reason teams advanced, then Scotty Bowman would go 1st overall, and Blake/Arbour would be first round picks too. Colorado was excellent before Hartley arrived and after he left. Sutter has a proven history of making teams better; they also regressed after he left. So it's not as simple as just saying the guy with more team success was better.
In fact, Colorado's OT point adjusted win% was .640 in the two full seasons before he arrived, .624 with him, and .646 in the 133 pre-lockout games after he left. there's not much indication he did anything to "get more out of them".
He did redeem himself greatly in Atlanta though. the team was already on the rise as an expansion team, but he clearly improved them right when he arrived, leading to steady improvement and two seasons which are still the best two that the franchise has ever experienced. Then they got worse after he left. Very.... Brian Sutter-like.
Calgary.... well, they're just brutal. I'm not going to hold anything against him there.
Special Teams:
No comments really. I think that both teams have the right players for both special teams units and which special teams unit performs better could end up deciding this series.
I think our PP1 units are very similar. You have a tad more firepower, but you don't have a board guy/net presence. That could be important.
PP2 units are again very similar. With McDonald and Boll, I have more firepower up front, but you've got slightly better pointmen. Kurvers is one of the very few PP2 specialists who could outdo Brisebois in this thing. So overall I can't really give anyone a PP advantage.
The PK is where this regina team really specializes, though. You have an outstanding PK specialist on your first unit in Yelle: 41% killed for units 8% better than average. But Henning's got him easily beaten, with 57% killed for units 25% better than average. Henning was simply more important to more successful penalty kills. Murphy was a very experienced penalty killer himself. Comparing him to Grosso is tough, we have to assume Grosso could kill penalties alright, but how well? On D, Marsh has impreccable PK stats himself, and Hamilton is more like Grosso - a guessing game. Hedican's PK stats are pretty weak for a first unit guy: 34% (his even share would be 33%) for teams 3% worse than average. And Starikov, do we actually know anything about his PK game? I mean, we're drafting him for his work with the national team, but with Fetisov, Kasatonov, Bilyaletdinov and Pervukin there, how much PK experience does he even have? Sorry but I honestly don't know the answer to that. Even if the question marks wash out, Marsh and Henning are huge advantages on the first units.
You have Martin Lapointe on a PK? OUCH! He was only out there for his team 11% of the time, extremely low for any PKer, even if this is a AAA draft 2nd unit. Zezel and Dahlstrom should wash out fairly well but Granato over Lapointe is a fairly sizeable edge. On D, Picard killed a lot of penalties for bad units, and Plager killed a ton for average units, so that's not bad. Tregubov and Moore should, based on their skill sets, be very good penalty killers and that's pretty much what Picard and Plager are, so we can call that a wash. Basically Regina's got a better PK2 because Atlanta's has a player on it with no business on a PK unit.
Question about leadership: Can you please outline to me Rick Kehoe and Bret Hedican's leadership resumes? Here are the leaders on Regina:
1 Mike Murphy (C) – captained the LA kings for six seasons, scouting reports said he was “very respected in NHL circlesâ€
2 Brad Marsh (A) – outstanding leadership skills well-supported in his bio. Wore the C for a season in Atlanta and again in Ottawa
3 Al Hamilton (A) – 4 year Edmonton captain in the WHA
4 Art Moore – captained the Ottawa Silver Seven for their last Stanley Cup
5 Tony Granato – outstanding leadership skills well-supported in his bio, wore an A most of his career.
6 Ivan Tregubov – “dedication, ruthlessness, loathing for defeatâ€
7 Billy Harris – some decent mention of leadership in his bio