Divisional Final - New Jersey Swamp Devils vs. Halifax Mooseheads

[BenchBrawl]

New Jersey Swamp Devils

Coach: Joel Quenneville

Alex Delvecchio - Newsy Lalonde (C)- Helmuts Balderis
Reg Noble - Bill Cowley - Maurice Richard (A)
Bun Cook - Mickey MacKay - Ace Bailey
Tony Leswick- Guy Carbonneau - Vic Stasiuk

Duncan Keith - Earl Seibert
Babe Siebert (A) - Harry Cameron
Frank Patrick - Alex Pietrangelo

Dominik Hasek
Hap Holmes

Spares: Russell Bowie (C), Bobby Bauer (RW), Todd Bertuzzi (LW/RW), Kevin Hatcher (D)​

PP1: Bill Cowley - Newsy Lalonde - Maurice Richard - Harry Cameron - Alex Delvecchio
PP2: Bun Cook - Mickey MacKay - Helmuts Balderis - Duncan Keith - Earl Seibert

PK1: Guy Carbonneau - Tony Leswick - Duncan Keith - Earl Seibert
PK2: Mickey MacKay - Ace Bailey - Babe Siebert - Alex Pietrangelo​

Style: Attacking team with a defensive conscience. All 6 defensemen are capable of moving the puck up ice, secure in the knowledge that if they get caught, they have the best goalie ever at stopping odd-man rushes. This is helped by the fact that the Swamp Devils have a LH and RH shot playing together at all times - ES, SH, PP.

vs​

Halifax Mooseheads
2013 Memorial Cup Champions

GM's: markrander87 & Stoneberg
Coach: Tommy Ivan

Alex Ovechkin (A) - Peter Forsberg - Bryan Hextall Sr.
Sid Abel (C) - Nels Stewart - Theo Fleury
Bob Gainey (A) - Walt Tkaczuk - Nick Metz
Dick Duff - Ryan Getzlaf - Ken Hodge

Slava Fetisov (A) - Art Coulter
Borje Salming - Jack Crawford
Barry Beck - Bob Goldham

Charlie Gardiner
John Vanbiesbrouck

Spares: Rick Martin (LW), Bob Bourne (F), Andrei Markov (D), Ken Randall (RW/D)

PP1
Stewart (net) - Forsberg - Hextall
Ovechkin - Fetisov

PP2
Hodge (net) - Abel - Fleury
Ovechkin - Salming/Getzlaf

PK1
Tkaczuk- Gainey
Salming - Crawford

PK2
Metz - Fleury
Fetisov - Coulter

Beck-Goldham​

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[BenchBrawl]

Bump, just not to confuse the voters with the 1st round threads

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Sorry I've been absent. I should have posted this a week ago. A few bullet points. Sorry for the brevity.

It seems like Halifax's 3rd line is built to stop an opponent with a stacked top line. NJ has split our top 2 scoring threats (Richard and Lalonde), so I think a dedicated checking line will be less effective against NJ.

Gainey and Metz are both stellar defensive forwards, but both provide very little scoring from an ATD standpoint. (To be fair, the same could be said about Carbonneau). Tkaczuk is a good defensive player, but so much of his value in the ATD is because of his strong even strength scoring. How much is he going to score at even strength with not one, but 2 wingers who are pretty offensively inept?

I drafted Stasiuk, a somewhat decent playmaker from the wing, in part to not waste Tony Leswick's somewhat decent goal scoring.

____

NJ's preferred matchup: Lalonde against Stewart. Lalonde is one of those rare centers even more physical than Stewart, so Old Poison isn't going to bully him. And I really like Lalonde's speed and goal scoring ability to take advantage of Stewart when Nels is loafing.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

To slow down Ovechkin, Leswick and Stasiuk (both legit LW/RWs) will probably switch sides. This will give Leswick some shifts against Ovechkin to troll him.