2019 OPPF FINAL - San Jose Rubber Puckies vs. Chicago Cougars

[BenchBrawl]

OPPF FINAL

San Jose Rubber Puckies

coach Tommy Ivan

Paul Kariya - Howie Morenz - Gordie Howe (A)
John LeClair - Cyclone Taylor - Patrick Kane
Craig Ramsey - Anze Kopitar - Glenn Anderson
Clark Gillies - Peter Stastny - Dino Ciccarelli

Eddie Gerard (C) - Eddie Shore
Borje Salming - Valeri Vasiliev (A)
Art Coulter - Cy Wentworth

Martin Brodeur
Curtis Joseph


vs.


Chicago Cougars

coach Hap Day

Johnny Bucyk - Joe Sakic (C) - Jaromir Jagr
Sweeney Schriner - Henri Richard - Boris Mikhailov (A)
Patrik Elias - Eric Lindros - Punch Broadbent
John Tonelli - Michael Peca- Jimmy Ward

Sprague Cleghorn - Earl Seibert
Frantisek Pospisil (A) - Bill Gadsby
Allan Stanley - Alex Pietrangelo

Terry Sawchuk
Roberto Luongo


​

Click to read more...

 

[BenchBrawl]

Rubber Puckies

PP1: Taylor - Morenz - Howe - Shore - Kariya
PP2: Ciccarelli - Stastny - Kane - Salming - Vasiliev

PK1: Kopitar - Ramsey - Gerard - Coulter - Brodeur
PK2: Morenz - Howe - Salming - Shore - Brodeur


vs.


Cougars

PP1: Schriner - Lindros - Jagr - Sakic - Gadsby
PP2: Bucyk - H. Richard - Mikhailov - Seibert - Cleghorn

PK1: Tonelli - Peca - Pospisil - Seibert - Sawchuk
PK2: H. Richard - Broadbent - Cleghorn - Pietrangelo - Sawchuk

 

[BenchBrawl]

Good luck gentlemen.

@TheDevilMadeMe
@Hawkey Town 18

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

A few things to start:

1) As in previous rounds, I expect Ivan to use the Taylor line primarily in offensive situations, the Kopitar line primarily in defensive situations, and the Morenz line in all situations. The Stastny line will get 4th line minutes, with Stastny and Ciccarelli getting extra time on the PP.

2) Chicago is a good team, but is it a good Hap Day team? I personally think Hap Day was a fantastic all-time coach, but he was very defense-first. Unlike other defense-first coaches, he did allow a few highly talented offense-only players in his lineups to do their things and excel, but he always surrounded them with defensive guys to cover for them. In Chicago's top 9, really, I only see Punch Broadbent and Henri Richard as real defensive stalwarts up front. Sakic a level down and Elias a level down from him. Not a disastrous coaching fit, but not an ideal one IMO.

3) Related to #2, Chicago's 4th line is very good defensively, but how many minutes will they play? Peca's even strength scoring is actually quite terrible at an all-time level; IRL, he actually received a fair amount of PP time over the course of his career. Now, Peca is a fantastic 4th liner because of everything else he brings, but I don't think you want to give him a ton of minutes here. So if I'm Chicago, I would like to see more two-way ability from my top 9 to take the defensive pressure off the 4th line.

4) San Jose's biggest advantage? The top line. Howe > Jagr and Morenz > Sakic, and I think both by bigger margins that whatever Bucyk's toughness gives him over Kariya. I can go into this more if someone disagrees.

5) San Jose's second advantage? The blueline. I think that big advantages at #1D (Shore vs Cleghorn) and #4 D (Gerard vs Pospisil) overcome his small advantages at #2D (Seibert vs Salming) and #3D (Gadsby vs Vasiliev)

6) Chicago's biggest advantage - even strength scoring from his 2nd and 3rd lines.

7) I like my team better (of course I do... heh) because I think that having a better overall 1st line, and a defensive line (the Kopitar) line that can see big minutes makes my overall forwards at least as good as his. And I have a somewhat better blueline.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Honored to have made the Final. I'm short-staffed at work this week and extremely busy. I likely won't be able to participate until next week.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Honored to have made the Final. I'm short-staffed at work this week and extremely busy. I likely won't be able to participate until next week.

I honestly don't see any reason to rush.

It's not like we are holding up another draft from starting, are we?

 

[BenchBrawl]

Take your time

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

San Jose's second advantage? The blueline. I think that big advantages at #1D (Shore vs Cleghorn) and #4 D (Gerard vs Pospisil) overcome his small advantages at #2D (Seibert vs Salming) and #3D (Gadsby vs Vasiliev)

Ih... honestly, I like both sets of top-4 Defensemen--- and I think a case could be made that they were the two best quartets in the league this time 'round. [Definitely the upper-third, absolute minimum.] There sure are enough 'underrateds' to go around...

Gadsby's underrated
Vasiliev's underrated
Seibert's moderately underrated
Pospisil is really underrated.

 

[The Macho King]

TBF I think Seibert's advantage over Salming is more than small, but I think the gap between Shore and Cleghorn more than makes up for that.

It's a good matchup though. Well constructed teams on both sides.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Pospisil is really underrated.

Yeah, but so is Eddie Gerard. I'm not sure Salming is any better. Same with Vasiliev. TDMM keeps saying Gerard is his #4D, but he might be his #2D. All three are pretty close in any case.

But people don't take me seriously when I talk about those old Senators players because I researched them too much. Maybe they're right. Who knows?

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

Yeah, but so is Eddie Gerard. I'm not sure Salming is any better.... people don't take me seriously when I talk about those old Senators players because I researched them too much. Maybe they're right. Who knows?

I don't know how we got to the point that we considered Salming superior to Gadsby (spoiler-alert-- he's not)... but that's another matter.

Funny thing when we start talking about Senators teams. Nighbor-enthusiasts talk about how team-performance seemed to head straight to The Land Under Milk Wood when he was out of the lineup. How much does that reflect positively on Nighbor? How much does that reflect negatively re: the collective rest-of-Ottawa?

I'll say that it probably shouldn't reflect as negatively on the collective rest-of-Ottawa as we might think. The phenomenon has the earmarks of a killer Plan A (Nighbor serving as hinge-point for suppression of opposition-chances) without any semblance of a Plan B. That, of course, is not the fault of Gerard, Denneny, or any of those other guys. [The corollary, however, is to conclude that it shouldn't reflect as positively on Nighbor as we might think-- but I have to take care to have a handy sofa to duck behind when I say such things.]

My opinion... in the latest HoH-100 project, we advanced lesser players than Gerard. And Vasiliev. And Pospisil. And...

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

It's really obvious reading about the old 1920s Senators dynasty that Nighbor was #1 on the team, Gerard was #2. For the specific period of dynasty years. The main reason Gerard isn't ranked higher than he is - lack of longevity. Because when he played, he was held in similar esteem to Sprague Cleghorn.

 

[VanIslander]

Let's vote soon.

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

One of the positives to be taken out of the San Jose/TDMM victory is that it looks like Shore was treated as the positive that he is, rather than someone for whom one would have to compose an anti-defamation project/counter-missionary campaign to defend his playoff performance.

Of course (as might have been surmised already), I really liked the Chicago/HT18 personnel, too. But there was something that I just noticed here-

Cleghorn is slotted at LD. This is the second consecutive draft where he was placed at LD. Before that, he seems to have been consistently placed and generally regarded as a RD. Have we encountered any information that has settled this matter one way or the other?!

Even more curiously, Gadsby was placed at RD. This appears out-of-phase with the other material I've discovered rooting about these boards.

[I also have a strange bizarre outlier opinion concerning Henri Richard. One may safely ignore my perspective and be much more in line with consensus. However, I don't think one needs a perspective as weird as mine to throw at least a small font ? re: his use on BOTH the power play AND the penalty-kill.]

 

[Dreakmur]

[I also have a strange bizarre outlier opinion concerning Henri Richard. One may safely ignore my perspective and be much more in line with consensus. However, I don't think one needs a perspective as weird as mine to throw at least a small font ? re: his use on BOTH the power play AND the penalty-kill.]

He does seem to be somewhat of a 5 on 5 specialist. I might use him on a PK unit, but not a PP unit.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Apologies for disappearing on this one. I had some major real-life stuff come up and I just didn't have the time. In fact, I haven't been back to hfboards at all until just the other day. I'm hoping I'll have time to participate in the ATD this year, but if I do it will likely only be one team.

Congrats to @TheDevilMadeMe for winning this for the 2nd year in a row! Another great team from him.