Poweplay:
I think NJ has a better powerplay.
Special teams are one area I have to disagree with you about.
I've gotten beaten up about my second line all draft and I'm surprised no one has brought this up about your PP before now.
Guelph has the better special teams and that is going to close a lot of the gaps offensively between our teams and give us the edge in this series.
Here is why:
Lapointe is the best PP QB in the series,
I agree with you here, Lapointe was great on special teams.
but I like Boyle and Pratt both more than Desjardins here.
This is very debatable.
Pratt for example "exploded" offensively in the war years and then "imploded" again as soon as they were over. Boyle has the benefit of playing post lockout against weak competition, although he certainly is talented.
Even if what you say is true by some margin, Desjardins was a very capable powerplay point man in his long career and, playing with Lapointe and Trottier, he doesn't have to do the heavy lifting.
Furthermore, having him on our first unit assisting Lapointe leaves us with a second great, creative quarterback for our second unit.
NJ has the better forwards on the first unit though with Maurice Richard more than making up for Trottier's PP excellence.
I'd agree that Maurice is the best individual
goal scoring weapon on either of our poweplays, of course. (Trottier can score OR make plays which is very dangerous in itself).
However, as a group our 1st PP is easily stronger in goalscoring and everything else for that matter.
The problem is that after Maurice Richard on your 1st forward unit.. you drop off considerably.
I'd also take Henri Richard/Starshinov over the Middleton/Vaive combo. Starshinov's main value is his ability to get goals from in tight.
Middleton and Vaive are proven to be
hugely more effective on the powerplay than either H. Richard or the unknown Starshinov.
Starshinov
Unknown in this setting, but I'll give the benefit of the doubt and assume "effective".
H. Richard
46 PP goals in his career. 155 PP points in his 1200+ game career.
Brian Trottier
161 PP goals, 4 times top 10 PP goals (8 times top 20 I believe) and an elite playmaker in addition.
Rick Middleton
115 PP goals, 3 times top 10 in PP goals and a "nifty" playmaker.
Rick Vaive
143 PP goals, 2 times top 10 in PP goals.
Of course, era plays a part in these numbers, for sure. However, those are staggering differences and my three guys, which include an elite playmaker and the best powerplay quarterback in the series, will surely outweigh what Maurice Richard can do without a playmaker.
You'll say: "Henri is the playmaker."
Henri, as you have pointed out yourself earlier in the thread, was largely unused on the powerplay. I have dug into this some more now. I'll put forward that this is because he was not a particularly effective powerplay player. He is undersized to retrieve pucks off the boards (and you put him there here) and I'll say was probably most offensively effective rushing, not setup in the zone.
He will be relied on very heavily for his playmaking ability up front on this powerplay (if we give Starshinov the benefit of the doubt and assume his league stats translate somewhat to this setting and he is at least effective as a butt in front of the net) because of our outstanding penalty killing forwards.
If we consider Starshinov a lesser Espo/Kerr/Andreychuk guy planting himself in front of the net, he obviously isn't much of a playmaker. And we know Maurice is not a playmaker despite anyones protestations otherwise.
Now I know the counter argument you're going to make is "the Canadiens had Beliveau playing first unit". That is true, but if Henri was a
good powerplay player, couldn't they have played him some more second line minutes or occasionally out of position as you have him here? Was Toe Blake a bad coach at evaluating what he had?
How about when Beliveau was hurt?
For example, the first time Henri was the league leader in assists was 57-58 when Beliveau missed 15 games and Henri got to play more.
This is also the year that he had his highest powerplay point total of his career with 20. That seems to support your argument except that three other times in his career he hit 15,16,17 PP points. Outside those four seasons he was basically a powerplay non-factor, maxing out at 11 powerplay points on a season.
So basically giving him 15 games of increased responsibility on the powerplay didn't really do a lot. He scored an extra 3-5 points in 15 games on a dynasty club known for its powerplay.
Basically Henri Richard had a point on an average of less than 10 powerplay markers a
year during his career. Second unit time doesn't pass the smell test explaining that considering the quality of the teams he played on.
Combined with the threat of our PKers that I'll get into later, we have a decided edge on the first powerplay units because yours is largely non-functional as a sum of its parts up front.
I also like NJ's forwards on the second PP unit better, particularly Zigmund Palffy, but Todd Bertuzzi's giant body in front of the net will definitely help too. Quackenbush is the best second unit pointman I think, though Coulter may be worse than Steve Smith.
Zigmund Palffy
3 top 10 poweplay goals
Todd Bertuzzi
2 top 10 powerplay goals
Clint Smith
0? but the "playmaker"
However Clint Smith's peak of 49 assists was 18 higher than his next highest.. and the peak year was 1944. I'll put an * on that one. Take out the war years boost and he is still a good playmaker, though.
John Ogrodnick
3 times top 10 powerplay goals
Rick MacLeish
2 times top 10 powerplay goals.
Rene Robert
1 time top 10 powerplay goals.
I know the question for the 1000th time will be, yeah, but who is the playmaker up front on your second line?
MacLeish: 125 career PP assists.
Robert: 183 career PP assists.
Both significantly more than the playmaker on your front line (yes, I know, era, but still they are more than adequate).
If Smith is better than Coulter by a bit then the points are going to wash because our Finn is very good.
I'd call the second PP units pretty even overall, which I am fine with when enjoying a large advantage on the first unit.
Penalty Killing
I think NJ has a slightly better PK:
Mainly because Coulter is the best penalty killing defenseman in the series. On the other hand, Poulin is the best PKing forward in the series.
Yes, Poulin is the best PK forward in this in my opinion too. He is also playing with MacLeish so your first powerplay unit will need to be very careful.
In addition to being a great defensive forward, Poulin was great at faceoffs and a great shorthanded threat.
5 times he was top 10 in the league in SH goals and is 6th all time with 39 SH goals.
MacLeish isn't as good defensively as Poulin (obviously) but his speed will help take away your space and his threat on the PK will keep you honest.
6 times he was top 10 in the league in SH goals. (admittedly two of those are only 2 goals though) and he has 23 in his career.
Trottier-Middleton is a great second forward pair. NJ's second forward pair isn't as good, but our third forward pair might be better than our second (Henri and Phillips take the last shift of the PK to try to exploit a tired PP). Neither team has any holes in the PK lineup - I expect both units to be quite effective. I think defensemen are more important to the PK than forwards, so I prefer NJ's PK, but it's not by the same margin as the PP.
Trottier-Middleton is outstanding. They can both skate, both are excellent defensively and both are a SH threat. Trottier is outstanding at faceoffs too.
Trottier was twice in the top 10 for SH goals and has 19 on his career.
Middleton was in the top 10 for SH goals three times and has 25 on his career.
I like our defensemen too. Both our units have a large physical guy to keep the front of the net clean and a guy who can skate, anticipate, and move the puck out smartly when we get possession.
I don't think our edge on the PK is as strong as our one on the PP, and you're right that both our teams feature strong penalty killing.. but in my eyes I see us having the advantage on the PK as well.