ATD 2011 Draft Thread IV

[markrander87]

I'm looking forward to talking about Sittler. Not sure if we have any data on this or not, but how many players have led their team in scoring at least 8 years in a row?


I compare Sittler to a certain Center who plays for a terrible team currently, who gets looked upon deifferently because of his lack of support. I feel Sittler absolutely falls into that category.

Offensively while playing on the Flyers he went toe to toe with Bobby Clarke who played on the same team. It really shows us what Sittler could do offensively with better teammates.

Im not going to try and sell Sittler as a high-end top unit C by anymeans, but his offense is a great compliment to Geoffrion and Olmstead.

 

[Velociraptor]

Skate???

I meant they are good skaters

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I'm looking forward to talking about Sittler. Not sure if we have any data on this or not, but how many players have led their team in scoring at least 8 years in a row?

Im not going to try and sell Sittler as a high-end top unit C by anymeans, but his offense is a great compliment to Geoffrion and Olmstead.

I think Sittler tends to be overrated because he was a Maple Leaf (I believe he's usually drafted ahead of Denis Savard, which is just wrong), but this is a solid spot for him.

The leading his team thing is quite impressive.

Those Maple Leafs teams were basically Sittler, Salming, and a bunch of scrubs.

 

[markrander87]

Very hard to find any defensive information regarding Sittler. I do find it interesting that he scored an Empty net goal against the Americans to clinch the 4-2 win with 5 seconds left during the Canada Cup. Team Canada felt comfortable with Sittler on the ice with a one goal lead in the final minute of the game.

Sittler also scored the Championship winning goal in Ot so he is a clutch performer. as well had 21 points in 9 playoff games that year.

EDIT: He was also named to the tournament All-star team as the top forward. Only Canadian Forward on the All-star team shows he was the top forward for Canada in the 1976 Canada Cup which had the best players in the world competing.

 

[seventieslord]

I'm looking forward to talking about Sittler. Not sure if we have any data on this or not, but how many players have led their team in scoring at least 8 years in a row?


I compare Sittler to a certain Center who plays for a terrible team currently, who gets looked upon deifferently because of his lack of support. I feel Sittler absolutely falls into that category.

Offensively while playing on the Flyers he went toe to toe with Bobby Clarke who played on the same team. It really shows us what Sittler could do offensively with better teammates.

Im not going to try and sell Sittler as a high-end top unit C by anymeans, but his offense is a great compliment to Geoffrion and Olmstead.

You're right that he is not a top-end center. But I got away with him as a 1st line center before as well - he centered Joliat and Lafleur. (Looking back, that was my best team (in terms of final result) and it was the longest I ever waited to take a 1st line center, and the soonest I ever had both 1st line wingers. I wanted to duplicate this strategy in this draft but couldn't say no to the Moose.)

You pretty much have 40 centers who are top-120 material and then there are about 40 more who could feasibly be taken top-250 and all be passable first line centers with the right linemates, or solid second liners.

I meant they are good skaters

Yes, better than you and I. But I think all three are bottom-10 among drafted forwards at this point as far as skating speed goes.

 

[overpass]

Very hard to find any defensive information regarding Sittler. I do find it interesting that he scored an Empty net goal against the Americans to clinch the 4-2 win with 5 seconds left. Team Canada felt comfortable with Sittler on the ice with a one goal lead in the final minute of the game.

Sittler also scored the Championship winning goal in Ot so he is a clutch performer. as well had 21 points in 9 playoff games that year.

Sittler's GM in Toronto thought he was slow, turned the puck over too much, and got caught deep and behind the play too often.

He wrote this in his book after he had feuded with Sittler and lost, so you can take it with a grain of salt. But he must have had a reason for wanting to get rid of Sittler in the first place.

 

[markrander87]

The leading his team thing is quite impressive.
Those Maple Leafs teams were basically Sittler, Salming, and a bunch of scrubs.

The more I think about that the more impressed I am. I really wish we had some list of who else could fall into that category. That type of consistency is huge, not to mention putting up 5 top 10's in points with those scrubs.

After looking into detail of these Leafs years im putting a lot more value into what Salming and Sittler were able to accomplish.

 

[markrander87]

You're right that he is not a top-end center. But I got away with him as a 1st line center before as well - .

How many teams were in that draft?

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

The more I think about that the more impressed I am. I really wish we had some list of who else could fall into that category. That type of consistency is huge, not to mention putting up 5 top 10's in points with those scrubs.

After looking into detail of these Leafs years im putting a lot more value into what Salming and Sittler were able to accomplish.

For what it's worth, Marcel Dionne thought that Sittler had an easier time putting up points than he did, since Sittler had Salming to feed him the puck in transition and Dionne had crap for puck moving defensemen. So it's not like Sittler was devoid of help. Sittler's wingers were crap compared to Dionne's, however. Edit: Except when he played with Lanny McDonald - forgot about that, oops. Still, Dionne generally had the better wingers.

 

[overpass]

The more I think about that the more impressed I am. I really wish we had some list of who else could fall into that category. That type of consistency is huge, not to mention putting up 5 top 10's in points with those scrubs.

After looking into detail of these Leafs years im putting a lot more value into what Salming and Sittler were able to accomplish.

3 of those top 10s came with Lanny McDonald on his wing, and Salming and another pretty good offensive defenceman on the blueline.

 

[markrander87]

Sittler's GM in Toronto thought he was slow, turned the puck over too much, and got caught deep and behind the play too often.

He wrote this in his book after he had feuded with Sittler and lost, so you can take it with a grain of salt. But he must have had a reason for wanting to get rid of Sittler in the first place.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if it had to do with his terrible lack of support. I'm looking forward to looking more into the subject.


It's very common(and not frowned upon at all) for superstars today to get frustrated with teams not building to win.

 

[seventieslord]

How many teams were in that draft?

30. So it was even less acceptable than it is now.

 

[markrander87]

3 of those top 10s came with Lanny McDonald on his wing, and Salming and another pretty good offensive defenceman on the blueline.

Well aware of that. McDonald has a career zero top 10 assists and 2 top 10's in ponts. Don't get me wrong I love Lanny as a player, but he's not anything special at all if he's the best linemate who Sittler ever played with as a leaf.

 

[markrander87]

For what it's worth, Marcel Dionne thought that Sittler had an easier time putting up points than he did, since Sittler had Salming to feed him the puck in transition and Dionne had crap for puck moving defensemen. So it's not like Sittler was devoid of help. Sittler's wingers were crap compared to Dionne's, however. Edit: Except when he played with Lanny McDonald - forgot about that, oops. Still, Dionne generally had the better wingers.

Agreed on all counts. Im glad I have Robinson to feed him in this thing.

 

[markrander87]

Sittler's GM in Toronto thought he was slow, turned the puck over too much, and got caught deep and behind the play too often.

He wrote this in his book after he had feuded with Sittler and lost, so you can take it with a grain of salt. But he must have had a reason for wanting to get rid of Sittler in the first place.

Do you know the story behind this? The Head coach at the time was fired and then reinstated, a move which rubbed the entire team the wrong way.

a process which saw Sittler lobby on the players' behalf for XXXXXXX reinstatement

This proves Sittlers leadership abilities

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Re: Thornton's playoff issues - I think the issue is generally that he plays a perimeter puck-control playmaking game. In the playoffs, when teams create strategies to defend certain players, Thornton is easy to defend because he's predictable. He isn't going to shoot very often, and will force the pass even if it isn't there. So all teams need to do are defend his wingers. Very different from Forsberg, who played a playmaking semi-perimeter game in the regular season, but shot much more often in the playoffs, keeping the opposition off-balance.

Here, it looks like Thornton is currently centering Gordie Howe. If you're going to force a pass to a winger, there is nobody better in history at receiving it than Gordie Howe (who is quite likely to just destroy the guy trying to defend him in addition to being one of the top 5 goal scorers ever). To me, that resolves some of the issues with Thornton. On the other hand, Howe might be an even better playmaker than Thornton, and Joe isn't really the best guy to receive passes back from Howe.

 

[seventieslord]

I'm stepping out, but not sending a list. I'll be ready to make my pick on the phone.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Doesn't LL prefer facebook notifications? Can someone facebook message him if you're friends with him?

(My one and only personal ATD rule is to keep it seperate from "real life" )

 

[MadArcand]

A line that can score, skate, setup, get the puck out. You name it.

Slowest 1st line ever?

 

[Derick*]

Re: Thornton's playoff issues - I think the issue is generally that he plays a perimeter puck-control playmaking game. In the playoffs, when teams create strategies to defend certain players, Thornton is easy to defend because he's predictable. He isn't going to shoot very often, and will force the pass even if it isn't there. So all teams need to do are defend his wingers. Very different from Forsberg, who played a playmaking semi-perimeter game in the regular season, but shot much more often in the playoffs, keeping the opposition off-balance.

Here, it looks like Thornton is currently centering Gordie Howe. If you're going to force a pass to a winger, there is nobody better in history at receiving it than Gordie Howe (who is quite likely to just destroy the guy trying to defend him in addition to being one of the top 5 goal scorers ever). To me, that resolves some of the issues with Thornton. On the other hand, Howe might be an even better playmaker than Thornton, and Joe isn't really the best guy to receive passes back from Howe.

That's a significant part of it. It also has a lot to with some of facing some of the toughest defensive teams in the league at an ungodly rate (Pronger twice, Predators twice, Red Wings twice...) and terrible coaching completely unable to adapt to this.

 

[Velociraptor]

Slowest 1st line ever?

Hahaha tried not to make myself look bad when I said they could all skate, yes I'm aware all three are not renown for skating and speed ability, but hey If I drafted the other LWer I had in mind, Espo and Neely wouldn't be able to keep up, thus making it a difficult struggle to generate offence. When they're all at the same pace, they bring an intriguing game of offense to the table, potentially confusing oppositions defense and making sure that we won't get caught for many offsides penalties. It'll be different on the power play where the speedster Alex Maltsev takes the wing on the power play, and will add a potent ingredient to the special teams unit, complementing Espo and Robitaille very nicely.

Just you watch for the men in teal and sienna

 

[BillyShoe1721]

Not sure I'm putting them all together, but if I do, would Tommy Phillips - Henri Richard - Maurice Richard be the fastest line in the draft?

It would be very impressive. xxx-Beliveau-Kurri could compete depending upon who I put at LW.

 

[seventieslord]

Henri and phillips are obviously fast, but there are a lot of mixed reviews on maurice's speed.

I thought LL would have picked by now. I will facebook him.

 

[monster_bertuzzi]

I thought the Lander left someone a list?

 

[Stoneberg]

I got a list from LL last night but he said this earlier:

im online today at the gfs so ill make my own pick till 4 our time which is 3 pm est

So I'm not sure if, now that 4pm has passed, I should revert back to the list...thoughts?