You make a good point about Chara's importance in this series and to the Isotopes, in general, GBC. In fact, he will move back up to the 2nd pairing with Stuart. The new Springfield defensive pairings:
Park - Mantha
Chara - Stuart
Burrows - Marotte
- with Olausson in reserve
Onto the matchup:
- the most obvious advantage for Springfield in this series is Dryden vs. the Ottawa goalies. It shouldn't require much analysis, but I would also like to point out that Vezina is an old-time goalie and, at least in my opinion, is probably not going to be up to playing 7 consecutive playoff games, if the series goes that far. Dryden sat for 20 minutes of his entire playoff career in Montreal and will, of course, start every game for the Isotopes. The matchup here is really Dryden vs. 5-6 games of Vezina and 1-2 games of Crozier, which is even more lopsided than a straight Dryden vs. Vezina matchup.
- Springfield's other clear advantage is on defense. GBC says that Clancy - Thomson "just works" as a 1st pairing...meh, I dunno. There are two problems here:
1. Clancy's size/strength disadvantage vs. the Springfield top 6. With the exception of Teemu Selanne (who is strong on his skates, himself), all of the Isotopes scoringline forwards are a physical mismatch against Clancy. None of Barber - Ullman - Bathgate are huge, but all three possess a great deal of physical strength and Barber/Ullman were very chippy guys who liked to hit and initiate contact. Baldy Northcott was a very big player for his era (6'0" 185 in the 30's) who was known for playing a strong, aggressive game, and Bobby Smith's size/strength advantage over Clancy shouldn't need much clarification. The King is a great defenseman, but his biggest weakness is exposed against the Springfield top 6.
2. That leaves Jimmy Thomson to do a lot of the dirty work for Ottawa. The thing about Thomson is that I see little reason to consider him a legitimate #2 defenseman in an ATD setting. He was a 2nd team all-star twice in very weak seasons for 2nd-tier defensemen (he shared 2nd team honors with Leo Reise Jr. and then Hy Buller) and is not a Hall of Famer. Thomson was a good passer and puck-carrier (though that seems a bit redundant with Clancy as his partner), had above-average size and was known as a tough player, but what reason do we have to believe that his defensive abilities are ATD first-pairing calibre? If they were, given his other qualities, I can only assume that he'd be a Hall of Famer. I don't actually have any information on Thomson's defensive skills, and not for a lack of trying. As far as I know, there is none available, which leads me to believe that he was probably nothing special in his own zone.
- the Leafs dynasty of the late 40's was built around a fierce forward unit (led by Apps, Kennedy, Bentley, Sloan, Smith, Klukay, Metz and Watson at various points) and Turk Broda. The blueline was clearly not the team's area of strength, and I think all of those defensemen: Thomson, Mortson, Goldham, Stanowski and Barilko - get overrated in this forum. I have a very interesting tidbit from a Toronto Globe and Mail
article on the inaugural NHL all-star game, which was played in 1947 between the defending champion Leafs and the league-all stars. The entire text is somewhat fascinating (the chippiness of the game, the introduction of glass panels behind the nets), but there is one snippet which I think is pretty telling about the Leafs team defense during their dynasty years:
Globe and Mail said:
The game was only 25 minutes old at this stage and suddenly Leafs fell apart, tumbling over each other and making things easy for the opposition. It was an all too familiar Toronto story. A good lead and the players letting down to suddenly find themselves on the wrong end of the score.
It's a fairly stunning indictment of Toronto's team defense from the hometown paper, though I don't honestly find it surprising. I get the impression that the great Leafs dynasty of the 40's won more in spite of its blueline than because of it. Considering the defensive quality of the Toronto forwards on that 47 team (Kennedy, Watson, Metz and Klukay being the obvious standouts), serious coverage breakdowns would seem to fall on the shoulders of the defense, which had depth, but lacked high-end talent.
Clancy - Thomson is a vulnerable first pairing in general, but especially against physical forwards, and doesn't compare well to a Park - Mantha pairing which has the toughness and defensive zone ability to effectively match up with ATD first liners.
- onto the 2nd pairings: I think it's fairly obvious that Stuart - Chara is the superior unit. Hod Stuart is a high-end 2-way #3 with great size and speed who (with Cleghorn), was considered one of the two most dominant defensemen in hockey history before the Shore/Clancy era. Some considered him even better than Cleghorn, and as Joe Pelletier pointed out in the Worldwide Hockey Hall of Fame
discussion, his career as a dominant player for the Silver Seven actually lasted for nine seasons before his tragic death at the age of 27. Considering that many players retired around 30 in Stuart's era, there isn't much of a knock in terms of career value here. I don't really know why Hod gets picked behind guys like Boucher and Gerard when the consensus among those who saw them play was that Stuart was the superior player.
Zdeno Chara is a guy who (on the strong assumption that he beats Phaneuf in voting this year) has got two 1st team and one 2nd team all-star nods under his belt, already, in addition to another season in which he finished 7th in Norris voting (making him a marginal 3rd teamer). That's already the resume of a strong #3 ATD defenseman. As a #4, he may be the best in the league. Playing the center zone in a left wing lock gives Chara help against wide speed on both sides (the left wing on the left and Stuart on the right) and his reach, which is obviously so good as to be considered an outlier, will make it extremely hard to go around him in transition in his reduced area of responsibility.
With the exception of the Bourque - Flaman "2nd pairing", Stuart - Chara is the best in the draft.
Suchy was a great all-around defenseman at his peak - a poor man's Clancy, in my opinion - but his peak was short (basically 68-71) due to the car crash and, like Clancy, he is a matchup problem against physical forwards. Suchy was 5'8" 160 in 60's-70's era hockey. I think Jan Suchy is a good #3 ATD defenseman with an excellent peak, but his area of weakness is exploitable by the Isotopes' forwards.
I think Barry Beck had the talent to be a solid 2-way #4 in an ATD, but as pit pointed out, a string of injuries made it impossible for him to play with much consistency. Taken as a whole, his career is really more that of a 3rd pairing ATD defenseman. Based on Norris voting, he's got three seasons in which he was a marginal 3rd team all-star (7th, 7th, 6th). He's a questionable #4 and obviously not in Chara's league. Suchy and Beck have the talent of a good 2nd pairing, but there are consistency issues, and Suchy's lack of size can be a liability. Springfield's second pair is pretty easily the better unit.
