Was Ragulin a bad skater during his entire career? He looked pretty bad in the Summit Series but I thought that he was at least a few years past his prime by that point.
- Wisent already answered this question, but I'll further illuminate the situation. Ragulin was born in 1941 (hard year to be born in the Soviet Union), putting him at 31 years old in 1972. Players didn't have quite the same longevity back then (though it wasn't the 30's, either), but suffice it to say, Ragulin wasn't exactly an old man, and in fact the Canadian press was shocked that he hung up his skates after 1973 and didn't appear in the 74 Summit Series. Aside from having fewer offensive responsibilities, the Ragulin you see in 1972 isn't a substantially different player from the one you'd have seen five years previous. When you start off that slow, you don't really lose much by your early thirties.
- as far as Suchy is concerned, he's both small and light (Eurohockey lists him at 5' 8" 170 lbs.), but was a fast skater and a tough, determined player in the defensive zone who was willing to do what was necessary to keep the rubber out of his own net. Why Jan Suchy declined in effectiveness so quickly after 1971 (still in his late twenties when most defensemen are peaking - he was born in 1944) and retired from international hockey is something I've never fully grasped. Given that Suchy was off the 1972 Czechoslovak world championship roster the year after winning his second IIHF best defenseman award strongly suggests that he was broken (and as an aside, playing without their best defenseman in 1972 makes what the CSSR did that year all the more amazing - I wonder how many GMs know that story?). He came back in 1973 and played well, but was finished with international hockey after that. So most likely, we're looking at a player who was not inconsistent, but rather is an injury risk. Against a physical team like New York, that could be an issue.
At any rate, for about 4-5 years Suchy was the Francis M. "King" Clancy (for some reason I find Clancy's whole name funny) of European hockey, only without the sweet nickname, the aggression or quite the skill level. A nice 2nd pairing puck-mover and well-paired with Flaman. How he'll fare physically against the likes of Forsberg, Lemieux and Hall (to name a few) is up to the voters to decide.
- one thing I really like about arrbez's team is that he went out and drafted some of the less-heralded Europeans (it's not going out on much of a limb to take Kharlamov, for example), and I think it has served him well. I have a great interest in European hockey (I'm an American, but many of the hockey fans I know here tell stories about guys like Suchy, Ragulin, etc.) and find it easier to talk about specific players when they're not on my own squad. Talking about your own players always leaves a funny smell.
- I am probably Tiny Thompson's most vocal critic. He had a nervous problem, and in my opinion what goes on between a goalie's ears can make or break him in pressurized playoff situations. Of all the possible knocks against a goalie, makeup is the one I take most seriously. Also, Tiny Thompson's Bruins were a very strong team. After Thompson's rookie season in which Boston won its first Cup, that team placed first in the regular season standings six more times in Thompson's career and yet couldn't win another Cup.
Of course it wasn't all Thompson's fault, but that club was simply not a team of winners. Parts of the nucleus (Shore and Clapper, basically) would later form what I call the Lost Dynasty in the early 40's ("lost" because they'd won 2 out of 3 when the war broke them up), but the 30's Bruins were hockey's answer to the Buffalo Bills. Thompson wasn't a winner in the playoffs and benefitted (in the form of his Vezina trophies) from playing behind the decade's best regular-season team, not to mention playing in the weakest goaltending era in NHL history.
Thompson's only consistent competition for the Vezina during his career came from Lorne Chabot, Shrimp Worters and Dave Kerr - not exactly a list of all-time greats. Hainesworth played on the downside of his career in the early 30's and Chuck Gardiner was actually the dominant goalie in the league until he died after the 1934 season. Normie Smith beat Thompson in 36-37 and then promptly hurt his arm. Against normalized competition in a modern "best goalie" Vezina format, Thompson wins maybe one or two. I don't think he's better than a 9th - 10th rounder and I've got him rated lower than a number of goalies picked later, including Lumley and his backup, Vachon.
Which leads me to the next point: Rogie Vachon is a great backup and a guy who a team can win with in the playoffs. He's on the lower-end of ATD starters, but he's reliable and the right backup for a team that has Thompson as the starter because he can handle a heavier-than-normal load for a backup when Tiny falters. I don't like Thompson, but arrbez did well to get Vachon where he did. That said, Billy Smith vs. Aurora's two-headed monster is a clear advantage for New York.