Gerard is not telling the media anything, but may be considering shuffling some LWs. Melville would have you believe Regina's chemistry will suffer. This team went through a full regular season together, and naturally different line combinations were tried along the way, due to injuries or possible slumps. Let's be clear: Regina won game 5 of their first round series
at home, and according to a usual playoff schedule, would have 5-6 days off to practice with any new combinations. Melville is coming into our building just
two days after closing out a grueling seven game tilt with a win in Peterborough. Gerard has spent the off-time keeping his team on their game and well-conditioned, just as he did in his first season with the Maroons when he won the cup:
Coach Eddie Gerard had been working his team hard, holding tough, regimented practices twice a day. Whereas Cecil Hart's Canadiens began the season still trying to get into shape, Gerard's boys were ready to go right from the start.
The speed and conditioning of our second line are really going to kill any line they line up against. We'll be up early and will not let up, just like Gerard's boys didn't let up on Victoria in 1926:
As the game wound down with the Maroons still leading 1-0, it became apparent, to the credit of coach Gerard, that the Montrealers were the more disciplined and better-conditioned group of athletes.
...and that's all before you consider the awesome potential that exists on the 1st line. Nilsson won't be able to stop himself from scoring, with Payne and Babich throwing the body and digging pucks out of the corners for him. Jovanovski-Markov is a pairing that will be feasted on by both of these units at all opportunities. It's puzzling how Regehr is such a bad option to place with a defensive liability like Brown, but on the other blueline putting Markov, a pretty solid player who is not in Regehr's league defensively, with Jovanovski, a player who has mostly been a liability with and without the puck to the same extent as Brown, is supposed to work. Jovanovski-Markov is a recipe for extremely erratic play against the speed of our second line and the forechecks our first and fourth lines can throw at them. Look out!
The biggest concern in the Melville camp has to be the playoff histories of many of their players. Their GM has said 100 times how much value he places on playoff performance, so it's puzzling to hear him say that Melville will defeat a Regina squad that features Steve Payne, Goldie Prodger, Slava Kozlov, Jimmy Peters, and Alf Skinner, among others.
Melville’s Ziggy Palffy, Keith Crowder, Dennis Hextall, John Wensink, Garry Galley, and Andrei Markov are all major playoff question marks. Five of those players' primary functions are as offensive players, and yet they all experience precipitous drops in their points per game averages when the playoffs hit. Palffy drops 24%, Wensink drops 34%, Galley falls by 35%, Markov drops 40%, Crowder plummets 44%, and Hextall freefalls by 74%. GBC likes to call the playoff records of players like Palffy and Hextall "incomplete". It's true that it's not just their fault their teams didn't advance more often, but that's no excuse for not at least pulling your weight and scoring at a level somewhat close to what your team has come to expect from you in the regular season. And this is half of their top-6 forwards we're talking about!
The other half of Melville's top-six are all adequate or better. Larouche, a poor-man's Nilsson, sees a drop in hisplayoff numbers but one that is respectable and acceptable. Ditto Ryan Smyth, who also brings a lot more to the table than just goals. That leaves Brad Richards, the team's lone playoff hero. (and make no mistake, he is definitely a playoff hero) It is a good thing for Melville that he's very durable, because if he were to go down, it's lights out, and even with him, the forward corps' ability to put up points is highly suspect.
Remember, "incomplete" means "not complete". You can’t put together a bunch of incomplete records and expect them to suddenly be complete playoff producers.
Mike Richards has performed well in his one real playoff, but it's just
one real playoff. Niedermayer, Brown, and Gee are all solid and responsible players with tons of postseason experience and have shown they can score at a reasonable level in the postseason, but of course they're getting fourth line minutes and won't be counted on for offense. That's good, because if Probert, according to GBC, with 0.41 career regular season points per game and 0.59 career playoff points per game "ruins" a 4th line's offensive potential, imagine what John Wensink (0.34, 0.19) and Jay Pandolfo (0.28, 0.26) do to their lines' offensive capabilities. Pandolfo, Brown, Niedermayer, and Gee are all solid players who I have a great deal of respect for, and GBC would be the first to tell you they were not drafted for offense. They will all perform well in their roles (although I see no reason to believe they'll perform these roles better than Skrudland, Rolston, Peters, Apps, and Skinner to make a difference in the series) I'm just saying, don't expect these lines to pitch in any offense at all.
If the bottom two lines can't score and the first two lines have some serious playoff question marks, then there really isn't anyplace left for offense to come from. Melville had better hope they are the beneficiaries of a large number of odd-man rushes, courtesy of Jeff Brown. They should also hope to spend a lot of time on the PP, but I don't see a Regina player who is going to be responsible for giving them many opportunities. Probert piles up PIMs, but he takes someone to the box with him when he goes.
Which brings us to Wensink - a poor-man's Probert, minus the size and longevity and playoff scoring - I'm not sure he's MLD material at all. Yes, he scored 28 goals one season – but that was 40% of the goals he scored in his entire career. No doubt he was popular with the fans, stuck up for his teammates, and could chuck the fists. Sounds like about 500 other players I can think of, and a decent number of them who are still undrafted, could play better hockey than him. You can say he was good defensively too and hope we buy it, but the guy had all of one PP goal scored against him his entire career. If he was any good defensively his team would have had him killing some penalties. His sole use is to fight Probert. And if we drop probert from the lineup, then what's Wensink doing out there?
Back to playoff production - In Regina's top six, only Amonte's playoff numbers see a drop similar to what the above six have seen (27%) . Nilsson, like Larouche, sees a drop but is left with great stats anyway.. Kozlov has been top-12 in playoff scoring three times, and Payne has had one playoff every bit as impressive as Richards has, (plus a couple more very good ones), only difference being he didn't win the Cup and Smythe for his efforts. Babich starred in many international tournaments and did all the dirty work that allowed Bobrov to play the way he did (this will be very beneficial to the soft and one-dimensional Nilsson). Haynes placed high on the leaderboards in playoff assists and points twice in the 1930's, when playoff scoring dropped by an average of 20% each season. Our top offensive defenseman, Brown, has playoff numbers just 4% lower than his regular season numbers, and Prodger scored some big goals in cup finals matches, including a cup winner on an end-to-end rush.
Even in the bottom-six, there is the potential for clutch play. Probert, the supposed "fourth line ruiner", stepped up his play considerably in the playoffs, scoring 44% more often than he did in the regular season, and carried Detroit in Yzerman's absence in 1988. Skinner went to five finals in seven years and led his team in goals twice, earning a retro Smythe (a legitimate retro award, given after extensive research) in 1918 for outperforming the likes of Cyclone Taylor and Frank Nighbor. He nearly willed Vancouver to a second cup too. He scored as often in the playoffs as he did in the regular schedule, and in the post-challenge, pre-consolidation era (1913-1926), that was tough to pull off.
There aren't question marks here - this team WILL produce in the playoffs. I can't say that about Melville with any certainty. All the strategy in the world isn’t going to suddenly cause players who don’t produce in the playoffs, to produce in the playoffs, and a bit of muscle from a couple of playoff underachieving second liners won't make a lick of difference in the end.
