Defensemen: NJ has small to moderate advantages on all three pairings
(Small but clear advantages on pairings 1 and 3, moderate advantage on pairing 2)
First pairing: Seibert (NJ) > Keith (Pittsburgh) by more than Coulter (Pitt) > Stanley (NJ), and #1 D is more important
- Seibert All-Star record: 1, 2, 2, 2*, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 7, 7*, 10 (*war year)
- Keith Norris record: 1, 1, 4, 6, 6, 7, 9, 11, 11
Now I happen to think Keith was somewhat underrated in Norris voting early in his career, and he also needs some kind of playoff boost. But still, this isn't all that close. Seibert was strong in the playoffs too, especially in 1938, when he was easily the best player on Chicago's shocking Stanley Cup win with a 14-25-9 record in the regular season.
On the recent HOH Top 100 list, Seibert finished
17th all-time among defensemen and Keith finished
25th all-time among defensemen, which seems about right.
- Stanley Norris record: 2, 3, 7, 8, 8, 8, 10, 12
- Stanley All-Star record: 3, 3, 3, 6, 10, 10 (incomplete all-star records for much of his prime, so he might have had a few more low finishes)
- Coulter All-Star record: 3, 3, 3, 3, 7, 8, 8, 8
Biggest difference? 4-3 edge to Coulter in 2nd Team All-Star nods.
Re: competition, it was a little weaker when Seibert and Coulter played than when Stanley and Keith played.
Both men were important playoff performers; Stanley had more great playoffs, but he also had more help.
Coulter finished
54th on the HOH Top defensemen list, and Stanley finished
59th, which seems about right. And of course the farther you go down the list the smaller the gaps become.
Second pairing: Lutchenko is a strong 3rd pairing anchor, which Pittsburgh doesn't really have. Hollett is a classic "Hall of Very Good Player," which is probably about where Lake and Shore fall.
Lutchenko was a 1st Team All-Star in the Soviet league for 7 straight years in the 1970s, when the USSR was in its golden age. He was a contender to make the bottom end of the HOH Top 60 defensemen, but didn't make it, as we rightfully decided there needed to be a gap between Pospisil and him.
Obviously, ranking Soviets vs NHLers isn't an exact science, but I really don't think it's that crazy to think that Lutchenko would be approximately the 75th best defenseman if Vasiliev is 25th and Pospisil is 58th (IMO, 58th underrates Pospisil by a little). Lutchenko is
clearly the next most decorated European defenseman after Pospisil.
As I posted in my previous series,
@Sturminator had Lutchenko in his 72nd to 77th range (along with Art Ross, Sergei Gonchar, Ryan Suter, Jack Crawford, and Alexander Ragulin) and when he posted his list of defensemen back in 2017. All the usual caveats about this just being the opinion of one man apply.
Orr = 1
+ Harvey, Bourque = 3
+ Lidstrom, Potvin, Kelly, Shore = 7
+ Robinson, Fetisov = 9
+ Chelios, Park = 11
+ Pilote, Clancy, Coffey = 14
+ MacInnis, Pronger, Cleghorn, Seibert, Stevens, Horton = 20
+ Clapper, Gadsby, Salming, Leetch, Chara = 25
----------------------- #1 D ^^
+ Howe, Quackenbush, Vasiliev = 28
+ Lapointe, Savard, Gerard = 31
+ Langway, Stewart, Tremblay, Weber, Keith, Blake, Goodfellow = 38
+ Niedermayer, L. Conacher, Pronovost, Laperriere, C. Johnson = 43
+ G. Boucher, E. Johnson, Kasatonov, Stuart = 47
+ Murphy, Siebert, Brewer, Coulter = 51
----------------------- #2 D ^^
+ Cameron, Reardon, Pospisil, Suchy, Doughty = 56
+ T. Johnson, Mantha, Bouchard, Thomson = 60
+ Stanley, Wilson, L. Patrick, Howell, Flaman, White, Karlsson = 67
+ Zubov, Stapleton, Desjardins, Gardiner = 71
+ Ross, Lutchenko, Gonchar, R. Suter, Crawford, Ragulin = 77
----------------------- #3 D ^^
+ Pulford, Hitchman, McCrimmon, Hall, Wentworth, Goldham, G. Suter, D. Hatcher, Mohns = 86
+ Neilson, Mortson, Day, Baun, Grant, Horner, Schoenfeld, Vasko, Beck, Duncan = 96
+ Heller, Cook, Boyle, Pratt = 100
----------------------- #4 D ^^
+ F. Patrick, Ramsey, Svedberg, Lowe, Boivin, Simpson, Green, Burns, Reise Jr., Dutton = 110
+ Foote, Rowe, Davydov, Harper, Konstantinov, Housley = 116
+ Sologubov, Harris, Harmon, Kuzkin, Burrows, Numminen, Bergman = 123
+ Watson, K. Hatcher, Griffis, Carlyle, Hollett, Seiling= 129
----------------------- #5 D ^^
...and so on.
For his part,
based on awards voting, after adjustments, I have Flash Hollett as the equivalent of a 3-time 2nd Team All-Star in the NHL.
Hollett’s adjusted All-Star ranks: 3, 4*, 4**, 10*
*adjusted war year downwards
**adjusted 1942 upwards - Hollett played 1/4 of the season as a F and finished between 4th and 8th in Hart voting
Remember, 3rd and 4th in All-Star voting for D means 2nd Team All-Star. In real life, Hollett has a 1st Team during the worst war years, a 2nd Team before all that many players had left, and a 4th-8th place finish in Hart voting as a D/F when the NHL was almost still at full strength.
Details:
me said:
Hollett is hard to get a read on, because he was a utility player the first half of his career, starting about half the games at forward, and half at D. So he has basically no all-star record the first half of his career, since the all-star records are by position.
He did finish somewhere between 4th and 8th in Hart voting in 1942, however, his final year as a utility player. See -
Award & All-Star Voting (1912-present) - we know the 4th-8th place finishes, but not what order they finished in.
Hollett’s unadjusted All-Star ranks: 2*, 3, 5*, 11**
*1944/1945 war years
**1942 played almost half the year as a forward, top 8 in Hart voting
For a quick fudge, I think it’s fair to double the war-year rankings (from 2nd and 5th to 4th and 10th). As for 1942, who the hell knows? Top 8 in Hart voting = Top 4 in All-Star voting if he were a defenseman the whole season? It’s a mega-fudge, but let’s go with it:
Hollett’s adjusted All-Star ranks: 3, 4*, 4**, 10*
*adjusted war year downwards
**adjusted 1942 upwards
3-time 2nd Team All-Star without really coming close again = classic Hall of Very Good Player, which is what I think Hollett was. Supposedly Jack Adams said he'd ruin Hollett's chances of making the HHOF because he was mad at Hollett from a contract dispute, a threat that would only be valid if Hollett was a borderline player to begin with.
You know who else look like classic HOVG players? Fred Lake and Hamby Shore. They may be in a similar range to Hollett, which is already a HUGE boost to them from where we thought of them in the past. See Sturm's list and remember Sturm said he'd have Hollett a couple of tiers higher today.
So overall, Lutchenko - who is usually used as a #3 in a 30ish team draft and who could easily be a low-end #2 in a 40 team draft - is the best defenseman on either team's second pairing, and is far enough ahead of the other three to give NJ the advantage. How far ahead depends on what you think of Lake and Shore. As I said earlier, I think they are definitely below than their contemporary Joe Hall, but how much worse is hard to determine.
Bottom pairing: Young (NJ) > Girardi (Pitt) at even strength. Frankly, I prefer Pervukhin between the 2 Soviets, but its hard to say for certain.
- Ivanov: 1st Team Soviet league All-Star twice (1964, 1965), 2nd Team Soviet league All-Star once (1966)
- Pervukhin: 1st Team Soviet League All-Star (1979). 2nd Team didn't exist when he played. 5th in Player of the Year voting twice (1977, 1985)
Hard to compare, but I don't see any advantage for Ivanov, especially when you consider how much stronger the Soviet league was in the late 1970s/early 1980s. (For comparison sake, if 1960s Soviets = 1970s Soviets, then Starshinov was a similar scorer to Petrov while also being better defensively than Petrov, and I don't think anyone thinks he was actually a better player than Petrov).
Just based off awards voting and era, I prefer Pervukhin to Ivanov, though I'm not going to say that definitively, because I know Ivanov had a lot of historical significance.
- Doug Young All-Star record: 7, 8, 9
- Girardi Norris record: 6
- Girardi All-Star record: 8, 19
Yes, Girardi faced tougher competition, but there's a big difference between getting recognized three times vs only once.
I was skeptical when IE drafted Girardi, until I saw the profile which shows Girardi was statistically among the best PKer of his generation. So call him a PK-specialist, but at even strength I'm pretty sure Young was better. Young also should get at least some sort of boost for winning 2 Stanley Cups as captain (albeit from the bench with injuries for the 2nd Cup).