BraveCanadian
Registered User
- Jun 30, 2010
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BC will point to the defensive abilities of his depth forwards, but I'm not sure they are actually better.
•Herbie Lewis is significantly better defensively than anyone on Guelph's second line. MacLeish is defensively responsible, but that just covers for Ogrodnick.
Robert was also solid.
•Who is better defensively, McPhee or Doan? I could be out to lunch here, as I never saw McPhee and he doesn't appear to have a Selke record. I guess McPhee is more proven in the playoffs at least (though Doan was excellent in a defensive role in international play). BC, you could change my mind with this one.
McPhee had Selke votes in three seasons that I could find: 86-87, a 5th in 87-88 and 88-89.
86-87 and 88-89 were token votes but strangely the Habs also had Carbonneau up higher in the voting so I can't imagine it was the Montreal homers voting for McPhee over Carbonneau.. I could be wrong though.
•Lebedev's a "grinder," but his defensive play appears completely unknown.
Lebedev's grinding is appealing to me on this line because obviously it is three grinders. I like that he has a bit of offensive upside as well because between him and Poulin, even as a primarily defensive line, they can't be completely written off as a threat offensively. If nothing else they can rag the puck.
•Poulin is an excellent 3rd line checking center. He was an elite penalty killer, but how much better was his even strength defense than Selke runner up Handzus who was merely a good PKer? Edit: I realized this may not be fair to Poulin who was much more prolific in the playoffs than Handzus. And he's a third liner vs. 4th liner so he'll have more of an impact. So yeah, Poulin is definitely the most impactful defensive player in the bottom 6.
I can't say enough good about Dave Poulin. He was such a team guy, determined, professional, hard working and great defensively. His numbers really do him no justice as a hockey player.
•MacKell and Gelinas are both "responsible" at even strength (MacKell being a top notch PKer).
Yeah Gelinas isn't outstanding but he is solid and speedy.
I like our fourth line's chances at creating some offense against yours, largely because Arnott has the size to combat Handzus and has a big speed advantage. Not to mention he has a couple of big playoff runs where he was very productive.