Whew, life got in the way this week. Sorry for the delay,
@BenchBrawl , and good luck!
First, as I mentioned, I’ll be changing the line-up around some. The forward lines are now
Blake/Stamkos/Howe
Heatley/Lach/Aurie
Stasiuk/Tkaczuk/Leswick
Pulford/O’Reilly/Stewart
O’Reilly and Stasiuk will replace Staal and Kovalev on PP2.
Coaching- I agree with your take. Ivan is a better coach, but the fact that Montreal has the home ice in four of the seven games, New York’s advantage is reduced a bit. I still count this an overall plus for the Americans, but it is not a particularly large one.
1st line- Man, are you ever rough on Stamkos. He’s not a physical player, but I have never considered him to be a player that is intimidated or shies away from contact… and at 6’1” 190-195 lbs, its not like he’s some little guy that can be pushed around (unlike the *cough* 5’10” 175-180 lbs Patrick Kane, *cough*). He’s produced just fine in real life, and is paired with a legendary tough guy in Howe and another noted board guy in Blake. Stamkos’ job on this line is to pot goals, and he is one of the best in history at doing that.
Now that I have (hopefully) sufficiently defended Stamkos’ honor, let’s take a look at the lines:
Hull/Schmidt/Wheeler vs Blake/Stamkos/Howe
Two great lines, but I think New York has the edge. First, lets get numbers out of the way
7 year VsX- Montreal: 275.3 vs New York: 302
New York is simply on another level offensively
Awards
Hart- Montreal: 3 vs. New York: 7
Art Ross- Montreal: 4 vs. New York: 7
Richard- Montreal: 7 vs. New York: 7
AS1- Montreal: 13 vs. New York: 15
AS2- Montreal: 4 vs. New York: 13
Finishes (not including this year)
Top 3 Points- Montreal: 6 vs. New York: 17
Top 5 points- Montreal: 11 vs. New York: 27
Top 10 points- Montreal: 17 vs. New York: 32
Top 3 goals Montreal: 11 vs. New York: 20
Top 5 goals Montreal: 13 vs. New York: 23
Top 10 goals Montreal: 16 vs. New York: 30
Top 3 assists Montreal: 4 vs. New York: 11
Top 5 assists- Montreal: 8 vs. New York: 18
Top 10 assists- Montreal: 13 vs. New York: 30
I mean… come on. That is dominance in favor of New York at Every. Single. Level. Even if we take WHA years into account (Hull and Howe), New York still has a massive advantage.
Defensively, I think the edge has to go to New York here as well. Howe and Blake for New York and Schmidt for Montreal are well-regarded, Hull is probably around average, and neither Stamkos nor Wheeler bring anything of note here.
The chemistry looks good for both sides too- physicality, puck carrying, shooting, passing, all the components are there for each side.
Finally, I think New York is uniquely suited to limit the damage of Montreal’s top player- Bobby Hull, as I made sure to pick up players with historical success in slowing him down in Stewart and Horton. All of my RWs (Howe, Aurie, Stewart, Leswick) can skate and pester Hull, and my RDs are also big guys who can skate (Horton, Burns, Hall).
All in all, while I do think that Montreal has constructed a strong line, it just doesn’t compare to the talent that New York possesses. Decisive advantage to New York.
2nd Line- Here’s where Montreal makes up some ground.
Dumart/Ullman/Kane vs Heatley/Lach/Aurie
Again, lets do the numbers thing:
7 year VsX- Montreal: 256.1 vs. New York: 238.7
Notable advantage for Montreal… but not the advantage that New York has on line 1.
Awards
Hart- Montreal: 1 vs. New York: 1
Art Ross- Montreal 1: vs. New York: 2
Richard- Montreal: 1 vs. New York: 1
AS1- Montreal: 5 vs. New York: 5
AS2- Montreal: 5 vs. New York: 3
Finishes (not including this year)
Top 3 Points- Montreal: 6 vs. New York: 3
Top 5 points- Montreal: 7 vs. New York: 8
Top 10 points- Montreal: 16 vs. New York: 11
Top 3 goals Montreal: 4 vs. New York: 3
Top 5 goals Montreal: 7 vs. New York: 3
Top 10 goals Montreal: 16 vs. New York:11
Top 3 assists Montreal: 2 vs. New York: 5
Top 5 assists- Montreal: 4 vs. New York: 8
Top 10 assists- Montreal: 16 vs. New York: 10
Again, Montreal has the advantage… but, again, it doesn’t measure up to the dominance that New York’s top line has over Montreal’s.
Defensively, again, I think the lines are pretty close to even. Lach (NYA), Aurie (NYA), Ullman (MTL) and Dumart (MTL) are the above average to good, Heatley (NYA) and Kane (MTL) are non-factors, if we are going to put it nicely.
Physicality goes to New York- Kane is a pretty soft player, whereas all of New York’s players can play a physical game. Dumart is probably the best combination of physicality and size, though, so that should count for something.
Stylistically the lines look mostly fine. All the pieces are there.
Overall, the second line definitely goes to Montreal. To say anything else would be dishonest.
For the top 6, however, I think the edge is firmly in New York’s favor.
Bottom 6- I won’t do VsX, finishes, or awards here since I am; A) running out of time, and B) of the opinion that these lines are not the primary offensive threats for these teams, and thus won’t be put in situations where a direct offensive comparison is really useful. Please feel free to add any such comparison if you feel that I am incorrect here. Montreal’s third line looks to be the best offensively, but I don’t think it is much use defensively. The fourth line has almost the opposite issue, where I think the defense is there, but the offense really isnt. New York has a bottom six (for this series, at least) that is built primarily for defense- The Tkaczuk line brings some solid scoring, but that fourth line is, realistically, a line that won’t produce much.
Defense:
Cleghorn/Coulter vs Chara/Horton
Cleghorn is a bit better than Horton, but Chara is noticeably better than Coulter. I think Cleghorn will get frustrated playing against the likes of Howe/Blake/Aurie/Leswick, leading the notoriously short-fused defenseman to take a lot of penalities. Advantage to New York.
Siebert/Cameron vs Pulford/Burns
I think the talent on your pairing is better… but I’m not sure about the fit. Both of those guys are known as rushers, right? That will lead to some odd-man rushes the other way. Still, advantage Montreal.
Rowe/Kuzkin vs Davydov/Hall
Third pairing, so I don’t think it matters too much, but I do think I have the advantage- Hall is a legit 4 in a draft this size which gives the pairing a nice boost.
Special Teams- due to my roster changes, my PP2 no longer has Staal/Kovalev, and instead will feature RoR and Stasiuk. This hurts PP2, but PP1 will be getting a lion’s share of the time anyway. I’ll take my PP1 over yours, but it’s pretty close. PK- both of us have strong units, so I don’t see much sense in spending time there.
Goalie- I don’t disagree with anything you wrote here; advantage New York.
Why New York should win this series:
- Top line. It’s arguably the best line in the league this year, and despite being an offensive powerhouse, does not give up anything defensively or physically.
- Top paring. I don’t think Montreal’s is weak, but the Chara/Horton duo will be tough to get around.
- Goalie.
- Coaching. This advantage is softened by being the lower seed, but what it means is that New York will not be giving anything up on the road, while being able to leverage the advantage to the utmost while at home.
- Containing Hull. As I said before, New York planned for Hull. The RWs and RDs can all skate and play physically. Stewart and Horton have proven, documented success in limiting the damage that Hull can cause. I don’t see a system set up like that for Montreal against Howe.
All numbers are in good faith; any mistakes are my children's fault.
