Namba 17
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- May 9, 2011
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I didn't know that.Foyston - Barry - Bathgate is nice, but that line was created before: 2nd line of Rob's team in 2016.
I didn't know that.Foyston - Barry - Bathgate is nice, but that line was created before: 2nd line of Rob's team in 2016.
From Barry's bio:
"Marty Barry, Larry Aurie, and Herb Lewis give the Red Wings one of the best forward lines in the game. It is not only a high scoring array, but one of the finest defensive combinations".
"Barry, big and strong and a hard worker, is as fine a playmaker as he is a defensive player".
From Foyston's bios:
"Foyston's work on offense and defence, his checking, skating, and shooting were of a class that fully justified his selection as the most valuable player in Pacific coast hockey".
"He shoots well and checks cleanly and hard".
"one of the best all-around hockeyists."
"Foyston was fast as a streak and his back checking and all round playing featured the game".
"In Foyston, Aurie and Johnny Sheppard, Detroit has a hook-checking barrier in front of their main defence that is hard to beat".
So, it seams to me, that Foyston was pretty good defensively and Barry was at least defensively responsible. I think, that's enough for the 1st line.
Yep. Foyston and Barry have what it takes to make the line solid and support Andy Bathgate's shenanigans.From Barry's bio:
"Marty Barry, Larry Aurie, and Herb Lewis give the Red Wings one of the best forward lines in the game. It is not only a high scoring array, but one of the finest defensive combinations".
"Barry, big and strong and a hard worker, is as fine a playmaker as he is a defensive player".
From Foyston's bios:
"Foyston's work on offense and defence, his checking, skating, and shooting were of a class that fully justified his selection as the most valuable player in Pacific coast hockey".
"He shoots well and checks cleanly and hard".
"one of the best all-around hockeyists."
"Foyston was fast as a streak and his back checking and all round playing featured the game".
"In Foyston, Aurie and Johnny Sheppard, Detroit has a hook-checking barrier in front of their main defence that is hard to beat".
So, it seams to me, that Foyston was pretty good defensively and Barry was at least defensively responsible. I think, that's enough for the 1st line.
A couple of newspaper clippings isn't enough evidence IMO, but that's just me. And as a scoring line in a vacuum, the line is excellent.
One of the biggest fallacies of the ATD is that finding 2-3 quotes from a single newspaper somehow transforms 06 and prior era players as more than they were. It's one of the reasons some from these era's are overrated. Quotes replace video evidence and the amount of material needed to label someone as bad, average, good, etc is not always consistent.
It takes a lot of time, effort and source materials to change a narrative.
It's not just quotes, it's their analysis too. For Barry there are two quotes about his defensive play - one where he lists along with his partners and other, where he named great defensive player. Other quotes or articles prize his offence. So, he was much more valuable offensively, than defensively and we can't say that he was great defensive player, based on one quote only. But was he a liability as, say, Bathgate? First, we can't find a word that he was irresponsible, or lazy or didn't like to play defense. Second - look at Lewis - Barry - Aurie line's description. They all listed at the same sentence - their whole line was "the finest defensive combinations". Both Aurie and Lewis were good defensive players - there are a lot of evidences and their backchecking is always underlined when they talk about Aurie and Lewis. Barry isn't prized that much. But when they talk about their line, Barry is listed alongside his teammates - they don't talk, that it were Lewis and Aurie, who have to checkback to cover Barry. No, all of them formed fine defensive combination. So, they all played defense, but both Lewis and Aurie were clearly better backcheckers.A couple of newspaper clippings isn't enough evidence IMO, but that's just me.
One of the biggest fallacies of the ATD is that finding 2-3 quotes from a single newspaper somehow transforms 06 and prior era players as more than they were. It's one of the reasons some from these era's are overrated.
It takes a lot of time, effort and source materials to change a narrative.
When I wrote my answer I didn't see thisI have no opinion on Foyston and Barry in particular, but I have to agree with the bolded. It used to be OK to find a few quotes and defend a player's defensive abilities with them, but since then we all gained experience going through newspapers day by day, game by game, realizing that such quotes exist for virtually every player, so the standards were imperceptibly raised along the way.
What I find more important is:
1) How consistently the player is praised for attribute X or Y (consistency/volume of quotes)
2) Comparative quotes (e.g. "Mr.X is better than Mr.Y")
3) Precise quotes (e.g. "Mr.X covered Mr.Y all game long")
4) General quotes not related to one single game (e.g. "Mr.X is one of the best backchecker in the league")
5) What other players/coaches/GMs thought about the player (but those also subjected to 1-4)
Still, sometimes you don't have time to create an enormous biography, so you're stuck with a few random pieces of the puzzle. I wouldn't be too severe neither.
Sure, let's talk about Bun Cook, who is probably one of the most overrated players in the ATD at this point. Is this a "slap in the face" to anyone? I dunno. Asking for "worst" picks/units/etc. sorta invites these sorts of conversations, does it not? Anyway...on to Bun Cook.This makes absolutely, unequivocally, no sense.
One, Dean Prentice (the one NOT in the HOF) doesn't exactly have a sterling resume to make that claim and two, more importantly, chemistry should matter in hockey, A LOT. More so than many other sports.
But let's dig deeper.
In a 40 team draft Cook went 273.
Too high? Maybe very slightly. Looking at the past draft history, no, he wasn't really THAT over drafted. Certainly not enough to warrant labeling the line "worst assembled in the draft" which is a slap in the face to the entire group and the GM who put it together without the ability to trade. I'm not deducting points for "meta-value and mathematical shenanigans" in this case and honestly, the pick wasn't some sort of egregious reach. The line has a higher end defensive presence at C who happens to be an elite passer of the puck and big game player. You have one of the best pure goal scorers in history and high end physical presence. You have a player who could and did do the glue work for the line.
Past draft history:
2019 - 306 (20 teams)
2018 - 304 (24)
2017 - 216 (25)
2016 - 216 (26)
2015 - 185 (32)
2014 - 206 (28)
2013 - 199 (32)
2012 - 221 (32)
2011 - 210 (40)
Should he ideally go in the 300's in a draft this size? Yeah, probably so. He was over drafted in the past, but again, there seems to be no justification for shitting on one of the most prolific real life trios of all time.
Sure, let's talk about Bun Cook, who is probably one of the most overrated players in the ATD at this point. Is this a "slap in the face" to anyone? I dunno. Asking for "worst" picks/units/etc. sorta invites these sorts of conversations, does it not? Anyway...on to Bun Cook.
What do we really think of Bun Cook? VsX tells us that he's a productive 3rd wheel type; Bunny's 7-year score of 76.3 puts him only slightly behind teammate Cecil Dillon [at 78.1], and a bit ahead of fellow LWs Corey Perry and Herbie Lewis [both at 75]. Bun Cook looks good as a scorer! Alas, Bun Cook is a good example of why we cannot be slavishly devoted to VsX as a tool for making scoring comparisons. Skating, for your entire career, as the 3rd best player on a line with two top-50 all time players is an enormous advantage. It's impossible to quantify exactly how this affected Bun's scoring, but we can hazard a guess by isolating the VsX effect of being temporarily placed on an all-time great line.
The careers of Ken Mosdell and Vic Hadfield are quite illustrative, as both players spent discrete seasons playing on great lines (with Olmstead - Richard and Ratelle - Gilbert, respectively), but most of their careers were spent skating on less illustrious units. So we can kinda isolate the VsX effect of skating with these linemates by comparing scoring levels in the years spend on and off of these lines.
Mosdell's career is pretty easy to parse. His peak was clearly from 48-49 to 55-56. He skated two seasons on the 1st line with Rocket, and six seasons on lower lines (one of which, 51-52, we throw out for VsX reasons, as Mosdell was injured).
Mosdell off the Richard line VsX scores: 48, 39, 47, 31, 42; average 41.4
Mosdell on the Richard line VsX scores: 75, 73; average 74
Vic Hadfield's career is just a bit harder to parse because the second season in which he skated with Ratelle - Gilbert was cut a bit short due to injury (we "give" Hadfield 77 points in 78 games in 72-73 - as opposed to his actual 62 in 63 - in order to normalize his VsX score for that season). His peak is from 68-69 to 75-76.
Hadfield off the GAG line VsX scores: 62, 63, 52, 57, 55; average 57.8This is obviously a quite rough-and-ready approximation of the effect of playing with all-time great linemates, but it's also a fairly conservative one. Frank Boucher + Bill Cook's combined 7-year VsX score is 191.1, considerably higher than that of Richard + Olmstead [178.3] and Ratelle + Gilbert [172.7]. So, there's a pretty good argument that Bun Cook got more help from his linemates than either Hadfield or Mosdell got in even their best seasons.
Hadfield on the GAG line VsX scores: 97, 77; average 87
But anyway...both Vic Hadfield and Kenny Mosdell experienced a bump of about 30 points in VsX production while placed on great lines. In fact, Mosdell's VsX values on the Richard line end up looking a lot like Bun's career VsX value [74 vs. 76.3]. So, the question becomes...if you take Bun Cook off of the Bread Line and put him on some checking unit, does his VsX production fall into the 40s like Mosdell? I think the likely answer to that question is yes.
As far as Bun's intangibles go...meh. I have researched those old Rangers teams extensively, and never came away from reading first-hand accounts of their exploits feeling like Bun Cook had much star power, at all. Descriptions of his grit and his defensive role on the line almost all come from secondary "retrospective" sources of at least somewhat questionable value. Contemporary sources seem to have mostly ignored Bun. This troubles me. Also, he was clearly not that important as a glue guy on the line, as he wasn't as good as Frank Boucher defensively, or as fierce as his brother Bill physically. Even as a glue guy, he played a secondary role.
Guys in Bun's position have largely seen their ATD draft positions drop over the years. Guys like Clark Gillies, Ken Hodge, Kevin Stevens and Steve Shutt used to get drafted higher than they do today, but have seen their draft positions slip as the group has gotten wise to the fact that they were really just secondary players in the shadows of greats. For some reason, Bun's draft stock hasn't slipped that much. I think I'd draft him in more the Doan/Liba/Mayorov range of left wingers. I think he's that overrated, yeah.
I wanna give Macho Man some credit here. He was kinda killing it with his old-tyme Rangers team until the Bun Cook pick. What makes me sad is that a suped-up version of the line could have been built using the pick spent on Bun. How good would Bob Pulford look in that slot? Mercy. That would be terrifying. Anyway, the reunited Bread Line still ends up being one of the best lines in the draft, but that's because he invested picks #33 and #48 in the unit, not because of Bun Cook.Great post, this is the perfect way to illustrate it.
However, I'm a sucker for real life chemistry, so I definitely give some bonus points to Macho Man for reuniting a complete line that is among the greatest in history, even if the 3rd wheel feels out of place on a 1st line. How many bonus points is the question.
Yes, we agree; navel-gazing is grade-school.People can do all the mental math gymnastics they want, but the fact remains Cook-Boucher-Cook is one of the greatest real life lines ever. Bun Cook, based on stone cold factual draft history wasn't over drafted this year when one uses grade school mathematics to determine an average draft position for years 2011-2019.
I wanna give Macho Man some credit here. He was kinda killing it with his old-tyme Rangers team until the Bun Cook pick. What makes me sad is that a suped-up version of the line could have been built using the pick spent on Bun. How good would Bob Pulford look in that slot? Mercy. That would be terrifying. Anyway, the reunited Bread Line still ends up being one of the best lines in the draft, but that's because he invested picks #33 and #48 in the unit, not because of Bun Cook.
Biggest blunder selection of the draft: Patrice Bergeron at 150 to play on the wing.
Favorite checking line of the draft: Patrick Sharp - Red Sullivan - John MacLean. HM to Bob Gainey - Doug Jarvis - Ed Westfall. I can't believe I'm picking a line with Jarvis, as I usually don't like lines that can't score on the counterattack, but not many teams built checking lines with counterattack ability.
Smartest/best strategic pick in the draft: Tim Kerr - round 15, #538 [This pick cemented the Swamp Devils as one of my favorites to win this year]
I'd also be interested in hearing about picks you were particularly sad to have missed out on, and how your roster might have looked with those picks on board:
I had three for the IceCaps:
Vincent Damphousse: Drafting the Punch Line 1-2-3 was bound to set me up with the worst defense in the history of the ATD, so I filled in some other team needs with a Habs flair until I settled on homeless-man's-Toe-Blake Dick Duff for the top line LW. And that wasn't great, but most of you still liked the line. But I really wanted Damphousse, who sits somewhere partway between Blake and Duff on the talent scale. If he fell half a round or so I'd have certainly missed out on Terry Harper, but Ted Harris was there for the taking in the spot I took Duff.
Carey Price: Tony Esposito's playoff record is more or less poison in the ATD, although the team was good enough to win a round anyway, which was nice. It's pretty clear to me that Tony was wildly overworked in his regular season prime, and I did say I wanted to get a proper time-sharing setup in place to avoid that. Price is the 42nd goalie taken this year, well within 1A territory. Andy Moog was fine as a 40-team-ATD backup, but not a guy I could really use as ammo to rehabilitate Esposito. I started my 4th line with Red Berenson for my next pick, so I'd have to find a forward. Russ Courtnall was available when I took Moog, and his best use might have been on the third line, making Trevor Linden into a centre.
Doug Young: Would have been the perfect partner for Vadnais. Stuff it, TDMM.
So I'd have been left with:
Damphousse - Lach - Rocket
Naslund - Little M - Drillon
Marshall - Linden - Courtnall
Mantha - Smith - Gagnon
Savard - Mantha
Harris - Gonchar
Vadnais - Young
Esposito
Price
+extras
Overall, I think it's a bit stronger. The second line would have still attracted some flies, but I really didn't have a backup plan for Pete Mahovlich. I thought of snapping up Turgeon somewhere along the way, but he and Drillon together would have been tantamount to a Kick Me sign in assassination. Could have used Damphousse there if I had him, but then I'd be back dialing Dick Duff's number.