2023 Jim Robson Division Final: Vancouver Millionaires vs Chicago Shamrocks

[Theokritos]

Vancouver Millionaires (@ResilientBeast & @rmartin65)

Coach: Cecil Hart

Busher Jackson --- Cyclone Taylor --- Jarome Iginla (A)
Keith Tkachuk --- Bryan Trottier --- Babe Dye
Aurele Joliat --- Russell Bowie --- Bobby Bauer
Gilles Tremblay --- Ken Mosdell --- Ryan Kesler

Frantisek Pospisil (C) --- Bobby Orr
Lester Patrick (A) --- Sylvio Mantha
Derian Hatcher --- John Carlson

Charlie Gardiner
Hugh Lehman

Spares: Frank McGee, Frank Patrick

Power Play 1:
Jackson - Trottier - Dye - Taylor - Orr

Power Play 2:
Joliat - Bowie - Iginla - Patrick/Taylor - Carlson

Penalty Kill 1:
Tremblay - Kesler - Hatcher - Mantha

Penalty Kill 2:
Joliat - Mosdell - Pospisil - Orr

Original roster post: ATD 2023 Roster Thread


Chicago Shamrocks (@Hawkey Town 18)

Coach: Jon Cooper

Henrik Zetterberg (A) <-> Joe Malone - Andy Bathgate
Herbie Lewis - Bill Cowley - Bill Cook (C)
Bun Cook - Patrice Bergeron - Punch Broadbent
Nick Metz - Dale Hawerchuk - Mark Stone

Doug Harvey - Tom Johnson
Scott Stevens (A) - Art Ross
Roman Josi - Cy Wentworth

---- OR ----

Scott Stevens (A) - Doug Harvey
Art Ross - Tom Johnson
Roman Josi - Cy Wentworth

Vladislav Tretiak
Tiny Thompson

Spares: Patrick Sharp, Bob Bourne, Jim Neilson

Power Play 1:
Malone - Cowley - Bill Cook
Harvey - Bathgate

Power Play 2:
Lewis - Hawerchuk - Broadbent
Ross - Josi

Penalty Kill 1:
Metz - Bergeron
Harvey - Johnson

Penalty Kill 2:
Zetterberg - Bun Cook
Stevens - Wentworth

Original roster post: ATD 2023 Roster Thread

Click to read more...

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Congrats on the first round victory fellas. Here's to a good series. Orr vs. Harvey, gotta love it!

I don't have much time right now, but I will say that this will again be our primary blueline setup for this series:

Doug Harvey - Tom Johnson
Scott Stevens (A) - Art Ross
Roman Josi - Cy Wentworth

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Roster Change for Chicago

In: Bob Bourne - 4th Line LW
Out: Mark Stone

Nick Metz moves to 4th Line RW

The 2nd PK unit will mainly be Bourne and Bun Cook, which will allow Zetterberg to take some shifts at 4th line C when needed. If a draw needs to be taken when the second unit is on the ice, Zetterberg will be sent out (obviously Bergeron is the first faceoff choice if available).

I will go into a more detailed explanation later, but Bourne was one of the fastest skaters of his era and a strong defensive player. This will be very useful against Vancouver since two of their best players (Orr and Taylor) are speedsters.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

One note from my Roster post:

- On the 1st line, Zetterberg and Malone can both play C and LW, giving them the ability to switch when necessary, but the great majority of the time the line will feature Malone at C and Zetterberg at LW.

 

[ResilientBeast]

Some quick thoughts, despite us having Orr your D group is quite strong looking and is probably your biggest advantage in this series.

Conversely we're at our strongest down the center and along the left wing where the Millionaires skaters out class their Chicago counterparts.

I'm not sure how Cooper will deploy Malone and Cowley in this series, they're by far the most offensively tilted centers he would have had to coach since Stamkos moved to wing. We're pretty comfortable allowing our centers to attack either of Malone or Cowley.

Bergeron is an awesome two way center, but is on a line that seems skewed towards checking with Cook and Broadbent so we're not concerned with his offense and he can only be out on the ice part of the time anyway.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Dealing with Bobby Orr

Similar to our 1st Round series where we were facing Guy Lafleur on the RW, Chicago is set up well to limit Bobby Orr's impact, since he plays on the same side of the ice at RD.

1. Doug Harvey and Scott Stevens have been split up again and are both playing LD, which is the side that Orr will likely be coming down. These are two of the very best defenseman defensively of all time, both will be playing big minutes in the playoffs, Orr will have to deal with one of them at all times.

2. All of Chicago's LWs are strong to very strong defensive players, who will be very useful in limiting Orr. Please take special note of the red text showing the great skating ability of our LWs. Great skating is one of the keys to defending Orr (see: Henri Richard). Skating was likely Orr's biggest advantage over his opponents, but our guys will be much better skaters than Orr is used to.

- Zetterberg: a modern player that I assume all are familiar with, so I won't say much here. He famously shadowed Crosby in the 2008 Cup Final en route to a Conn Smythe and Cup win.

- Herbie Lewis: a couple quotes from his bio linked here
"Herbie Lewis was born in Calgary, Alberta, and was to become known for his relentless defence and blinding speed during an eleven-year career in the NHL. He was rough for a little guy, a good defensive winger and accurate playmaker, and considered the fastest skater in the NHL in his day with his trademark short, mincing steps."

"Considered among the best thinkers of the game, Lewis was known as much for his skill without the puck as he was for his work with it. The key to Detroit's 1936 cup win was that the Lewis-Barry-Aurie line was able to control the Leafs' powerful kid line of Primeau, Conacher and Jackson, especially the work Lewis turned in controlling right winger Conacher. "Herbie did a grand job of checking Charlie," Adams told the Border Cities Star, a joy that was shared by Lewis. "What pleases me more than anything else is that we kept Jackson and Conacher, the two best players in the league, from dangerous shots," Lewis said. In 1935, he signed a new contract worth $8000 per season, making him the league's highest paid player. "

- Bun Cook: a few quotes from his bio linked here
"Bunny stands out as a great natural skater, possibly the finest there is
Defensively, though, he is a star among star forwards. In 9 seasons the writer hasn't seen him make a wrong move on defense, and during that time has saved probably 300 sure goals."

“His back checking was effective and, in general, unerring. He exhibited his customary knack of being on the spot when the visitors threatened and, as the Senators grew desperate, his accurate blade more than once saved Roach the trouble of clearing from a rally near the goal.”

"The two Cooks were too speedy for Broadbent and Siebert, both while on attack and in doubling back to smother Montreal rushes with clever back-checking."

"In addition to penetrating deeper and more threateningly into American territory than any of his mates, Bun Cook effectively plugged up defensive holes in brilliant fashion."

"Both sets of forwards did some clever back checking. Newsy Lalonde and Bunny Cook led the Sheiks in this department of the game."

- Bob Bourne: a few quotes from his bio linked here
"But when people remember Bob Bourne it won't be for his scoring. It will be for his skating. Bourne was one of the fastest skaters of his day, perhaps the best in the immediate post-Yvan Cournoyer era and pre-Paul Coffey era."

"The thing is, though, Bob never really has a slump. He's too versatile for that. He skates well and checks so that the fellow opposite him never accomplishes much. So if his scoring tails off a bit, he's still doing you a lot of good."

"His SPEED, DEFENSE, AND PENALTY KILLING made him EXTREMELY VALUABLE even if he was not as well known as some of his teammates."


3. Patrice Bergeron
Chicago's 3rd line will be matched up against Orr as much as possible and they are set up well to defend against Orr. We are all familiar with Bergeron, he is an all-time elite defensive center, and here he has wings that can pressure on the forecheck.

Of course, Orr will play more minutes than this line, so this matchup won't happen all of the time, but we have other tools as mentioned above.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Nitpicking Vancouver's Roster

Vancouver has built a fine team for sure, but part of the ATD is picking apart other team's rosters. Here are a couple things I see that are less than ideal for Vancouver:

1. Brian Trottier has A LOT of defensive responsibility on the 2nd line. Dye is one of the worst defensive players in the draft. Tkachuk certainly can win puck battles in the corners, but that's in the offensive zone. When the other team gains possession Trottier is on an island, which is not a position he was used to being in as Al Arbour demanded all of his players be at least responsible defensively. Trottier usually had a good defensive player on his left side, usually Clark Gillies (coincidentally Bob Bourne sometimes filled that role), and Bossy was at least responsible (i.e. better than Dye). This will likely take away from Trottier's offensive game as he will need to focus more on carrying the defensive load for his team.


2. Derian Hatcher normally played the right side on D in real life, and Vancouver has him at LD. During his best years with Dallas, their shutdown pairing was Hatcher on the right, Matvichuk on the left. In the 1996 World Cup Hatcher was on the right side next to Leetch on the left. Now, it should be pointed out that Derian Hatcher is a LHS, which IMO makes the shift to the left side not as bad as if he were a RHS, but he is still playing a side which he doesn't normally play. Also, he's a bottom pairing Dman, the 5/6 Dmen are the guys that you want to be in as comfortable a position as possible because they are simply lesser players than most of the other guys on the ice.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Coaching

While you may look at Jon Cooper and think he's a short career coach because he's still in the middle of his career, he just completed his 10th full season with Tampa Bay, which is one more season than Cecil Hart coached in his entire career. I read both as players' coaches, but it's clear to me that Cooper has the better resume.

Cooper has made the playoffs 9 of 10 years. In 9 playoffs Cooper's teams have won 2 Cups, made it to the Final 2 more times and lost, and made it to the Conf Finals 2 more times and lost in 7 games. In both of those Conf Finals Game 7 losses, they lost to the eventual Cup Champion (Pittsburgh and Washington).

Cecil Hart's teams also won 2 Cups, but he never made it to the Final any other years. His teams had strong regular seasons, but tended to underachieve in the playoffs. Finishing 1st in the regular season 3 times and 2nd in the regular season 4 times, Hart has only 2 Cups to show for it, with not even one other appearance in the Final.

In Hart's 7 seasons in which they didn't win the Cup, they were eliminated by a lower seed 4 times. In the 2 seasons that they won the Cup they beat one lower seed and one higher seed en route to victory each year.

Cooper's teams were not perfect (we all remember the Columbus sweep), but overall his teams have performed better than expected in the playoffs.


Coaching is an advantage for Chicago

 

[ResilientBeast]

Congrats @Hawkey Town 18 I'm always happy when the team that puts more effort in the thread wins even when I'm on the losing side.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Thanks @ResilientBeast! You and @rmartin65 built a strong team, as usual.