AAA 2011 playoffs opening round: #4 Garnish Pride vs. #5 Montreal Jack of Diamonds

[VanIslander]

AAA 2011 Playoff Opening Round Series


Garnish Pride

coach Sid Abel

Yevgeny Mishakov - Christian Bordelau - Glenn Brydson
Dave Hunter (A) - Greg Malone (C) - Donald Audette
Sylvain Turgeon - Yanic Perreault - JP Dumont
Brent Gilchrist - Ron Wilson - Bill Collins
Nathan Horton, Billy Bell

Keith Brown (A) - Rick Lapointe
Jeff Norton - Tom Reid
Pekka Marjamaki - Randy Ladouceur
Ed Carpenter, Zbynek Michalek

Richard Brodeur
Don Simmons


vs.


Montreal Jack of Diamonds

coach Terry Murray

Alex Semin - Dan Quinn - Joe Murphy
Lowell MacDonald - Jude Drouin - Jim Fox
Greg Gilbert (C) - Bryan Smolinski - Radek Dvorak
Ryan Malone - John McCormack - Kelly Buchberger (A)
Derek Roy, Tom Webster, Duke Dukowski

Joe Reekie (A) - Philippe Boucher
Patrice Brisebois - Dana Murzyn
Joni Pitkanen - Gerry Hart
Craig Rivet

Jocelyn Thibault
Gary Smith

​

Click to read more...

 

[VanIslander]

Teams feel free to post powerplay and penalty kill units and explain how your team stacks up against the strengths of your particular opponent.

 

[tony d]

Good luck to Reen and the Montreal team in this, here's a look at my penalty killing units:

The Garnish Power Play:


PP 1: Yevgeny Mishakov, Christian Bordelau, Donald Audette, Pekka Marjamaki, Keith Brown
PP 2: Sylvain Turgeon, Greg Malone, JP Dumont, Jeff Norton, Rick Lapointe

The Garnish Penalty Killing Units:

PK 1: Dave Hunter, Yanic Perrault, Tom Reid, Keith Brown
Pk 2: Brent Gilchrist, Ron Wilson, Rick Lapointe, Randy Ladouceur

 

[VanIslander]

Alex Semin - Dan Quinn - Joe Murphy

The most talented underachieving line I've ever seen on this board. A trio of character flaws.

Murphy was considered the most tlaneted member of the Oilers rookie 4th line in their 1990 Stanley Cup season, yet goth Graves and Gelinas had grit and competiveness in spades and went on to better careers overall.

A book could be written about Quinn. I won't bother to slander what any google search would uncover.

Semin has disappointed, been criticized, shows up sporadically, has been cinconsistent in terms of effort.

This line will WIN a game and lose a game all by themself!

I'd rather ice the EXTRA skaters Dukowski-Roy-Webster than this trio!!!!!!

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

The issue with Semin is his effort level in the playoffs. But at some point, a player is so much more talented than the guys trying to stop him, he can score based on talent alone. It's often the biggest thing that stops AHL superstars from translating their play into the more competitive NHL. The question should be, is Semin talented enough beat Keith Brown and Rick Lapointe and score on Richard Brodeur, even if he isn't trying particularly hard?

Can you provide more info on Gary Smith? Considering the quality of Montreal's starter, I can definitely see Smith getting some action.

 

[tony d]

Comparing the 1st lines Garnish has an advantage at every position:

1st Line: At Left Wing Garnish goes with Yevgeny Mishakov, a player who enjoyed a good career in the Russian Leagues. He played mainly on the checking lines which make his goal numbers more impressive. I think he'll adapt quite well to being a 1st line player.

Alex Semin is Montreal's 1st line Left Winger, Semin is a good enough player but his incosistency will hurt him as well his linemates.

At centre I go with Christian Bordelau, he was my 1st pick and put up really good numbers in the WHA. He was a tremendous playmaker and should help Mishakov a lot. Bordelau had 2 seasons of more than 70 assists which might be the best assist numbers for any player in this draft.

Dan Quinn had really good career numbers but his reputation really hurts him, it's not worth discussing here but it could hurt his performance.

At right wing on my first line I go with Glenn Brydson, Brydson is the glue guy on my first line, he also scored 10 or more goals in a season 4 times in the 1930's so he has some offensive spunk.

Joe Murphy was always a good player but he didn't put up the numbers you'd expect out of a 1st overall pick as he was in the 1986 draft.

I'm hoping Reen comes in to offer discussion on this series, it would be helpful for this series to have some discussion from my opponent.

 

[VanIslander]

Gary "Suitcase" Smith three times went to the Memorial Cup, the third time a charm, going 11-1 and winning it all in 1964 with the Toronto Marlboros as a 19 year old. He also shone in the WHA playoffs, winning the Avco Cup league championship in 1979 with the Winnipeg Jets with an 8-2 record as a 35 year old. Inbetween he lost playoff battles with two NHL expansion clubs, Oakland and Vancouver, and played a couple of insignificant playoff games as backup for a pretty good Chicago team. That's it for playoff experience.

However, he had enough regular season experience backstopping lousy teams to be expected to see action and in fact beat out a playoff-poor, three-regular season winning career Thibault.

Smith should be the team's starter:

Wins

1968-69 NHL 21 (6)
1969-70 NHL 19 (6)
1970-71 NHL 19 (9)
1973-74 NHL 20 (8)
1974-75 NHL 32 (3)

Shutouts

1968-69 NHL 4 (5)
1970-71 NHL 2 (9)
1971-72 NHL 5 (3)
1973-74 NHL 3 (7)
1974-75 NHL 6 (2)
1975-76 NHL 2 (9)

Minutes

1968-69 NHL 2993 (7)
1969-70 NHL 3762 (3)
1970-71 NHL 3975 (1)
1973-74 NHL 3632 (4)
1974-75 NHL 3828 (3)

The GM may list Thibault over Smith but coach Murray certainly must see the wisdom of playing them differently. Murray has a rep for developing young players (Kopitar notably) and preaching team defense, and would ice a 19 year old three-time Memorial Cup goalie or his 35 year old WHA veteran WHA championship equivalent in a heartbeat. In fact, coach Murray was in a playing-the-backup controversy just a few weeks ago:

Kings coach Terry Murray has been all the talk in LA hockey circles this week, as he decided to rest uber hot Jonathan Quick – riding a streak of three straight shutouts – and put in back-up Jonathan Bernier for Tuesday’s game vs. the Devils.

Barry Melrose went on NHL radio yesterday saying he would have never made such a move and several people around the world of hockey have been agreeing with him.

Still, on paper, the move made sense – especially considering Murray had told Bernier he would start on Saturday morning (i.e. before Quick’s third straight shutout).

“It’s a decision I made a couple of days ago,” Murray said after practice on Monday. “I let Bernie know at the Saturday skate because I wanted to get him prepared and I knew Sunday was going to be a day off. I wanted him to have an opportunity to get himself ready and today he got a good workout in. We have a lot of games coming up and right now the schedule starts getting pretty busy. We have three Conference games right after New Jersey. So, it’s an opportunity to get him going.”

Would it have been better to change his mind and tell Bernier he needed to wait a little longer?

Many began asking that exact question almost from the start. Yet, when Murray was asked if he had any regrets after the Kings 3-0 loss to the Devils last night, his response was rather short – “You can dissect this whole thing any way you want.”

Coach Murray added – “Bernier was fine. I thought he made some big stops. We gave up some quality chances in the first period. He played well. This was not about the goaltending. This is all about managing the puck and turnovers and giveaways that ended up being very easy goals against.”

http://hockeyindependent.com/blog/the-mayor/39940/

 

[VanIslander]

Bryan Smolinski - Jude Drouin - Tom Webster
Greg Gilbert (C) - John McCormack - Ryan Malone ​

Gilbert played well in the last Stanley Cup championships for the NYI and NYR as well as cup run in Chicago. He should see more ice time in this series. Smolinski has had several decent playoffs over his 123 NHL playoff game career, two good world championships and 5 assists in 6 World Cup games in 1996, so he ought to see top-6 minutes on this squad. Malone has one excellent Stanley Cup finals run and one good Olympics in a more significant role than fourth liner, so ought to move up here. Goose helped shadow Howe in the Habs Stanley Cup win after helping Toronto to the cup earlier in his career. So he could easily see third line minutes here. Webster led the Whalers in scoring in the regular season and in the postseason, all the way to the WHA championship one year, and to the conference finals another year. He also scored goals against the Soviets in the 1974 Summit Series. He should see ice time here.

 

[BillyShoe1721]

I'd give a significant talent edge in first lines to Montreal, but the line just doesn't look like it will click well. Quinn is a playmaker that can get Semin the puck(who can score goals), but both are horribly offensive-minded. Murphy was no two-way player himself either. On the other hand, Garnish has two decent physical guys on the wings, with the offensive flair in the middle. Mishakov:

Mishakov was one Soviet player who played full out. He was an energetic and exuberant forward who showed unbridled spirit, often on the penalty kill.

"The playing fury and fighting spirit of this normally reserved person are really astounding," said Vladislav Tretiak of Mishakov, in the book Kings of the Ice. "In workouts he's possessed and in games he can, if need be, spend five and even 10 shifts on the ice without substitution. And when he is replaced by another player, he'll sit on the bench as if nothing has happened, wink at one guy, nudge another in the ribs as though he has just had a good rest."

Brydson:

Right-winger Glenn Brydson played nearly 300 games for four different clubs in the 1930s. He was known for battling hard in the corners and sticking with his check while contributing on offense as well.

Semin:

Can be intimidated and knocked off the puck. Could use more muscle on his 6-2 frame to continue to thrive at the NHL level. Needs to better utilize his linemates and work on his defense.

Quinn:

Quinn and the Pens got off to a terrible 1989-90 season. Quinn, who was very popular among his teammates wherever he went, was a defensive liability and had a poor work ethic - something that the Pens were trying to eliminate from their game. They traded him halfway through the season along with Dave Capuano and Andrew McBain to Vancouver for Rod Buskas, Barry Pederson and Tony Tanti.

 

[seventieslord]

My question about this series is, is Mishakov being miscast as a scoring line player? I always got the impression he was more of a grunt. Hedberg and I did an extensive comparison between Mishakov and Dan Maloney as our 4th line LWs in the AAA11 finals (that were solved by NHL06 simulation!)

 

[vecens24]

Yeah I tend to agree that if tony goes with the Line 1 vs. Line 1 matchup I think that his first line will grind Montreal's first line to death.

 

[BillyShoe1721]

My question about this series is, is Mishakov being miscast as a scoring line player? I always got the impression he was more of a grunt. Hedberg and I did an extensive comparison between Mishakov and Dan Maloney as our 4th line LWs in the AAA11 finals (that were solved by NHL06 simulation!)

IIRC his scoring totals were a bit inflated by doing very well in non-relevant international tournaments. I had him last year and I seem to remember something of that nature.

 

[tony d]

The goaltending battle will be an interesting one here, I think Gary Smith is the best goalie in the series and I gave some thought to picking him as my backup before settling on Simmons, but let's break this down into #1 vs. #1 and #2 vs. #2:

My #1 goalie Richard Brodeur has championship experience as the #1 goalie on the 1977 WHA Champions. He also helped lead Vancouver to the Cup finals in 1982. He's 2nd all time in the WHA in wins. Here's a quote on how good Brodeur was from Joe Pelletier's website:

Brodeur was, literally, the Canucks saving grace. He was an exciting goalie to watch, pretty acrobatic and had lots and lots of shots against. His career 3.85 GAA his grossly inflated by the high scoring Smythe division of the 1980s. His win/loss record is very respectable considering how bad the Canucks were in comparison to their divisional foes.

Montreal goes with Jocelyn Thibault as their #1 goalie, Thibault was a decent enough goalie during his time but I don't think he's a useful #1 at this level. He had a 4 and 11 career record in 18 career playoff games. Perhaps Thibault is hurt by the fact that he was the goalie Montreal acquired in the Patrick Roy trade but his lack of playoff experience hurts him.

The battle of the backups is where things get more interesting, as I said I debated between Don Simmons and Gary Smith as my backup but in the end I went with Simmons. Simmons should be a serviceable backup and step in should Brodeur falter, in the 1962 playoffs, for instance, he helped Toronto secure the Cup by coming off the bench.

Much like Brodeur Gary Smith may be hurt by his career record, obviously he's a better goalie than his career record but I don't know how he'd perform in a backup role.

So in my opinion I get the advantage in the #1 goalie and I'll give Montreal a slight advantage in the backup battle.

 

[tony d]

Yeah I tend to agree that if tony goes with the Line 1 vs. Line 1 matchup I think that his first line will grind Montreal's first line to death.

That's the plan, my lines will match against his line 1 vs. line 1, line 2 vs. line 2 etc. Wish Reen would come in and debate why his team should win to give some debate in this series from the actual participants.

 

[BenchBrawl]

I will go with Gary Smith as my starter just forgot to change it.

People don't seem to be please with my 1st line but I think they're all wrong when they say it can't work , I think they will definitely be capable of creating lots of offensive productions and I plan to use them against Garnish 2nd and 3rd line when possible.My first line will NOT be a minute-eating 1st line , they will be a an offensive weapon to capitalize on average defensive plays and bad changes ( especially D pairings ) , all the while being capable of still scoring against Garnish's first line if put in this difficult position.

All of my 2nd , 3rd ,and 4th line bring some defense to the table , all 2nd , 3rd , 4th line are capable of contributing to the offense , and my 3rd and 4th line are fully capable of holding their own in the physical department.

I think I have a huge edge on the powerplay and it will be crucial for my team to capitalize on special unit.Semin , Quinn , Drouin/Murphy with Brisebois and Boucher ( sometimes Pitkanen ) quarterbacking this thing , it could get ugly for Garnish's PK unit and real fast.I have lots of players with strenght that can shine with the space offered on a powerplay.

I also think I have a huge edge on the penalty kill with guys like Reekie , Murzyn and Hart + guys like Dvorak , Gilbert ect... not to mention I don't play my offensive stars on defensive unit because they just don't fit , making my line-up fresher during the games.

Basically I think people focus way too much on my 1st line and see 3 underacheiver and theirb rains goes : ALERT ALERT ! while when you look at my team and the big picture this is a team capable pof playing all around hockey when a line capable of creating more offense than any of Garnish line.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Thinking about it , it's possible I put Roy in there on away-games instead of Quinn , and bring back Quinn in home games to capitalize on the last change.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Comparing the 1st lines Garnish has an advantage at every position:

1st Line: At Left Wing Garnish goes with Yevgeny Mishakov, a player who enjoyed a good career in the Russian Leagues. He played mainly on the checking lines which make his goal numbers more impressive. I think he'll adapt quite well to being a 1st line player.

Alex Semin is Montreal's 1st line Left Winger, Semin is a good enough player but his incosistency will hurt him as well his linemates..

You served your argument in a really wonderful fashion , but no matter how you serve a bad meal it's still a bad meal.The fact you admit Mishakov was playing mainly on checking lines almost automatically gives Semin the edge on a 1st line alone , especially since Semin is easily one of the best offensive wingers in this thing , if not the best.He might be inconsistent but he still maintained at least a 0,40 gpg ratio over 5 years with 2 of them being 0,55 , 73 , 79 , and 84 pts seasons , so basically it doesn't matter if you score your points in bunches or consistently , points are points.Not to mention we all know the kind of special talent Semin is.

 

[jkrx]

You served your argument in a really wonderful fashion , but no matter how you serve a bad meal it's still a bad meal.The fact you admit Mishakov was playing mainly on checking lines almost automatically gives Semin the edge on a 1st line alone , especially since Semin is easily one of the best offensive wingers in this thing , if not the best.He might be inconsistent but he still maintained at least a 0,40 gpg ratio over 5 years with 2 of them being 0,55 , 73 , 79 , and 84 pts seasons , so basically it doesn't matter if you score your points in bunches or consistently , points are points.Not to mention we all know the kind of special talent Semin is.

In a playoff series I wouldnt want Semin on my team. You are right that his regular season is one the best when it comes to offensive production.

You have a third liner who scored a little but consistently vs. a guy who may or may not show up to game.

 

[BenchBrawl]

30 points in 37 games ain't great , but it's far from '' wouldn't want him on my team '' level.

 

[jkrx]

30 points in 37 games ain't great , but it's far from '' wouldn't want him on my team '' level.

Ok, I wouldnt want him as my primary scorer.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

In a playoff series I wouldnt want Semin on my team. You are right that his regular season is one the best when it comes to offensive production.

You have a third liner who scored a little but consistently vs. a guy who may or may not show up to game.

On the other hand, Semin almost certainly faced tougher competition in the real playoffs than he is going to at the AAA level here.

 

[Rob Scuderi]

Semin's worst playoff performance came in 09-10 and it was when Halak played way above his ability. Semin still had a ton of shots in that series (44!), but just couldn't bury anything.

Halak made the Caps and Pens offensive stars look pretty impotent that year. I think his supposed playoff woes really stem unfairly from that series.

 

[chaosrevolver]

Semin's worst playoff performance came in 09-10 and it was when Halak played way above his ability. Semin still had a ton of shots in that series (44!), but just couldn't bury anything.

Halak made the Caps and Pens offensive stars look pretty impotent that year. I think his supposed playoff woes really stem unfairly from that series.

Eh, he was kept to the outside a lot in that series. Didn't have that many great scoring chances overall but had a lot of low-quality shots.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Semin's worst playoff performance came in 09-10 and it was when Halak played way above his ability. Semin still had a ton of shots in that series (44!), but just couldn't bury anything.

Halak made the Caps and Pens offensive stars look pretty impotent that year. I think his supposed playoff woes really stem unfairly from that series.

Well, that and his ex-teammate singled him out as someone who didn't care about winning.

 

[Rob Scuderi]

Yeah I mean I saw the quotes this summer. They said how they'd take bets on how early into the year he'd fake an injury so he could get out of practice etc. so I get he's a pretty poor teammate but I just think the playoff choker thing is a bit overblown is all.

Not caring about winning is pretty damning but I guess just think he's the same player all year long. Pure skill but soft as butter and no character or desire whatsoever. I'd see how the tight checking of the playoffs would cause him a lot of problems but his playoff numbers themselves aren't that awful in this context.