Bob Cole Divisional Quarterfinals: Chicago vs. Dawson City

[Sturminator]

Chicago Shamrocks

Head Coach: Tommy Ivan
Goaltending Coach: Warren Strelow
Captain: Bill Cook
Alternate Captains: Reg Noble, Art Ross, Ching Johnson


Reg Noble - Howie Morenz - Vladimir Martinec
George Hay - Frank Fredrickson - Bill Cook
Marty Pavelich - Ken Mosdell - John "Pie" McKenzie
Tommy Smith - Doug Weight - Bruce MacGregor


Bill Quackenbush - Ching Johnson
Art Ross - Bob Goldham
Brian Engblom - Ted Green


Tom Barrasso
Mike Liut


Spares: Metro Prystai (LW/C/RW), Mathieu Schneider (D), Joe Watson (D)

Vs.

Dawson City Nuggets

Coach: "Badger" Bob Johnson
Captain: Bryan Trottier
Alternate Captains: Chris Pronger, Punch Broadbent


Anatoly Firsov - Bryan Trottier - Punch Broadbent
Esa Tikkanen - Evgeni Malkin - Pavel Bure
Hec Kilrea - Butch Goring - Pat Verbeek
Eddie Shack - Red Berenson - Adam Deadmarsh
x - Alex Shibicky, Sami Pahlsson

Chris Pronger - Sergei Zubov
Flash Hollett - Vitali Davydov
Victor Kuzkin - Dunc Munro
x - Dmitri Yushkevich, Darius Kasparaitis

Alec Connell
Lorne Chabot​

Click to read more...

 

[Dr Pepper]

Good luck Hawkey, here's to a good matchup.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Good luck Hawkey, here's to a good matchup.

Same to you, should be a good one.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Should be an exciting series with two teams built from the forwards in, with offensive minded coaches, and bargain goaltending.

 

[Dr Pepper]

My goalies don't need no steenking coach.

 

[nik jr]

goaltending is very close. barrasso was a superior puckhandler, but i think he was also more erratic.


dawson city has several agitators: tikkanen, shack, verbeek (plus pronger and kasparaitis if counting liberally). who will they target? chicago has several players who took many penalties (noble, mckenzie, ross, johnson, green).



i think dawson city's top pair is superior, but i think chicago has better defensive depth. chicago has no suspect defensive players on its blueline, but dawson city's blueline has more offensive ability. barrasso will help chicago in transition, though.

is there any reason kuzkin and davydov are not a pair? they played together for the soviet team, so it seems strange to split them.


trottier with pronger - zubov would form a very strong 2 way unit. if they play as a unit, which line of chicago will they check? chicago has 2 powerful scoring lines. chicago's top line is very fast. who will defend chicago's other scoring line?


what defensive matchups does chicago want? dawson city has 4 art rosses in its top 6, plus firsov.


malkin and bure will not be as consistent as chicago's scoring lines, due to their shorter careers, but are very explosive. bure is often criticized for being one dimensional, but i think his overall offensive game is really underrated. bure was not a breakaway specialist. he was a very good passer, had the full range of shots and was dangerous on PP.

on the down side, malkin and bure are weak defensively.

 

[Dr Pepper]

goaltending is very close. barrasso was a superior puckhandler, but i think he was also more erratic.


dawson city has several agitators: tikkanen, shack, verbeek (plus pronger and kasparaitis if counting liberally). who will they target? chicago has several players who took many penalties (noble, mckenzie, ross, johnson, green).



i think dawson city's top pair is superior, but i think chicago has better defensive depth. chicago has no suspect defensive players on its blueline, but dawson city's blueline has more offensive ability. barrasso will help chicago in transition, though.

is there any reason kuzkin and davydov are not a pair? they played together for the soviet team, so it seems strange to split them.


trottier with pronger - zubov would form a very strong 2 way unit. if they play as a unit, which line of chicago will they check? chicago has 2 powerful scoring lines. chicago's top line is very fast. who will defend chicago's other scoring line?


what defensive matchups does chicago want? dawson city has 4 art rosses in its top 6, plus firsov.


malkin and bure will not be as consistent as chicago's scoring lines, due to their shorter careers, but are very explosive. bure is often criticized for being one dimensional, but i think his overall offensive game is really underrated. bure was not a breakaway specialist. he was a very good passer, had the full range of shots and was dangerous on PP.

on the down side, malkin and bure are weak defensively.

Good player analyses.

Kuzkin and Davydov indeed have very strong chemistry together, but I think I split them up to "spread the wealth" as both are defensively sound and I'm not sure how strong a 3rd pairing of Hollett-Munro would've been.

I can only hope that my defense and Connell can contain the likes of Howie Morenz. Pronger and Zubov will be used a lot in this series, both on special teams and at even strength.

And I'm aware of Malkin and Zubov's defensive lapses; Tikkanen will hopefully aid in that respect, even if only a little bit, trying to take some of the pressure off as well by drawing the attention of Chicago's checkers.

I'm hoping my forwards can churn out enough goals to be the difference in this series, because from the blueline back, it seems like a pretty fair match.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I really like Quackenbush-Johnson as a shutdown pair. The pair won't score all that much, but they are excellent defensively and compliment each other well, and Quack is good in transition

 

[nik jr]

morenz can be hard to build around, b/c he is a goalscoring C who was very fast, but reg noble seems like an ideal linemate. noble has no problem with morenz's speed, was a very good playmaker, was strong defensively and enjoyed the dirty parts of hockey.

montreal sportswriter marc mcneil and frank selke said noble was one of the hardest hitters ever. noble also got votes in the toughest player ever poll posted in the dirt thread.

on january 16, 1926 noble KOed morenz with an open ice hit and many fans in montreal threw trash onto the ice.

I really like Quackenbush-Johnson as a shutdown pair. The pair won't score all that much, but they are excellent defensively and compliment each other well, and Quack is good in transition

ross - goldham could also be used as a shutdown pair.

chicago's F's catch the eyes more, but its blueline is really solid, even though it has no big stars.

it is overall really physical (and quackenbush was not as unphysical as previously thought), does not have any defensive liabilities, and is big. ted green, the smallest member, was very physical.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Special Teams for Chicago

PP1
Vladimir Martinec - Howie Morenz - Bill Cook
Bill Quackenbush - Art Ross

PP2
Tommy Smith - Frank Fredrickson - George Hay
Ted Green - Doug Weight


PK1
Marty Pavelich - Ken Mosdell
Ching Johnson - Bob Goldham

PK2
Reg Noble - Bruce MacGregor
Brian Engblom - Bill Quackenbush/Ted Green

Extra PK F: Howie Morenz/Ted Green
Extra PK D: Bill Quackenbush/Ted Green
​

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I have no idea why Ted Green is on the PK over Quackenbush.

 

[Dr Pepper]

Dawson's PP/PK lines:


PP1
Malkin-Firsov-Bure-Broadbent-Zubov

PP2
Kilrea-Trottier-Verbeek-Pronger-Hollett

PK1
Goring-Tikkanen-Kuzkin-Pronger

PK2
Trottier-Berenson-Davydov-Munro

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

I have no idea why Ted Green is on the PK over Quackenbush.

I thought about that a lot...Green's bio (which was done by someone else) had multiple quotes about how good of a shot blocker he was, which I thought would be extra helpful on the PK. I also figured leaving Quackenbush out would mean more ES time for the Quackenbush-Johnson pairing. Do you think that tradeoff is not worth it?


EDIT: I'm going to do some more research on Green's PK ability. For now I will list both of them on PK2. That way Ivan has the option of using who he wants depending on the situation.


EDIT 2: I've also included Green as an option for the extra PK forward as he has experience doing that

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Here are some thoughts on this matchup...

This matchup features two highly offensive teams. I think my Chicago team has the edge up front in terms of offense, but Dawson has more offensive support coming from the blueline. One problem with Dawson is that I see no real shutdown defense pairing for them. IMO Zubov is not good enough to handle a top line like mine...and with their speed he will often be without the help of backchecking forward teammates. Quackenbush-Johnson IMO is a pretty solid shutdown pairing, and Chicago's second and third pairs are no liability either...Sound defensively and physical, with Ross and Green providing enough offense to start things the other way.

I think Ivan wants to go power vs. power with the 1st forward lines. Noble and Broadbent should have some good battles as should Trottier and Morenz. I see speed being an edge for Chicago here. I think my second line should be kept away from Dawson's first, as they could be vulnerable to a good two-way line like that. If it has to, my third line can be put up against them and while they won't generate much offense at all, they should be able to keep them off the board with some good D support.

IMO Ivan can play either of Chicago's 2nd or 3rd lines against the Malkin line. Fredrickson is at worst a small plus defensively, Cook gets some credit for his aggressive and physical game, and Hay is not a liability. Tikkanen is a solid defensive forward for Dawson, but Malkin and Bure are minuses, and with a player of Cook's caliber and size Tikkanen will have his hands full to begin with. IMO Chicago's 2nd line is fairly creative and will have the puck more of the time when these two are head to head.

If the Mosdell line is played against the Malkin line, the matchups are just how Chicago wants them...Mosdell and Pavelich checking the two big offensive players of that line. Bure is a unique player in that he has incredible speed and the ability to create offense completely on his own, but Pavelich is one of the best defensive LW's in the league. He has success against Rocket Richard...he should be effective against the Russian Rocket as well.


In terms of the defense pairings...I think the first pairs are close. Pronger is the best player on either, but Johnson holds a good sized edge over Zubov. Dawson's is better offensively and Chicago's better defensively. I think Chicago has the edge in both the 2nd and 3rd pairings...Ross is better than Hollet and Goldham is better than Davydov. IMO our 3rd pairing on Chicago is one of the best in the draft...Green is a #4 on many teams and Dawson is arguably one of them.


Ivan should claim a coaching advantage over Johnson. Both are well suited for the teams they have...Ivan is just a better coach, and is the key to two of Chicago's players...Both Morenz and Fredrickson had trouble with coaches that tried to reign them in, fight them on certain things, etc. Ivan is not that guy at all, he lets his players be creative, and should really maximize the production of those two in particular.


Goaltending is close enough to call even. I actually think Barrasso could have a slight edge here. I'm not as big on Connell as some others, and when you think about the kind of team he is playing in front of, it is a new situation for him. Connell was on Ottawa teams that were great defensively...he is not going to have that kind of support with this squad.