Dreakmur
Registered User
Vezina wasn’t even the best goalie of his era, Benedict was. Fuhr was considered the best in the world for at least 3 years.
Vezina was definitely better than Benedict - that's old news, isn't it?
After the big 6 goalies (Hasek, Roy, Plante, Sawchuk, Hall, and Brodeur), Vezina is in the conversation. I have him behind Dryden, and Brimsek for sure, and about equal to Tretiak. He's a top 10 goalie.
What 3 years was he considered the best in the world? Through most of his prime, he put up about equal numbers to his back-up. Fuhr is one of the weaker starters in the draft, though he does have big-game pedigree, which improves his play-off stock somewhat.
Fetisov was better, but “quite a bit” better? No. Pronger dominated for 30 minutes a game and was considered the best player in the world one year, not just best dman.
Fetisov' probably between Red Kelly and Larry Robinson, which puts him safely inside the top 10 defensemen of all time. Pronger is down in the 20s. That is quite a bit better.
Pulford we talked about. He didn’t shadow Jean in real life, he had help from Kelly, how will he do it on his own here? And he wasn’t even a natural center from what I understand.
As discussed, Pulford is one of the few checking centers who has the combination of skating and strength to be able to handle Beliveau. He played both LW and C through his career, and excelled in a checking role at both positions.
According to Dick Duff, Pulford was used against Beliveau - " We knew we had to stop Beliveau, so Bob Pulford would be assigned to him. Pully was supposed to bump him all night to slow him down."
As I said above, Pulford is not going to shut down Beliveau. We know that. He will, however, slow him down, especially with the help of Provost on the wing and our very solid defense core.
I don’t know about your scoring claim either. Have to dig into that. Morris on a third line is a luxury from my understanding and this crowd seems split on Perreault but Orr said he was his toughest opponent. The other guys on that line: Martin, Gaborik have multiple 50 goal seasons and add Niedermayer and I don't see anything you could do to deal with the combo of speed, skill and snipe, especially on your PK and blue line.
You put your 7 season vs. x scores right on your roster page. A 73.1 for Martin and 69.9 for Gaborik is pretty weak. Iginla has 86.7 and Gottselig a 74.8. Iginla is especially effective at even strength, with an ES vs. X of 91.9.
Morris has some skill yes, but if he's being used in a checking role, how much will he be able to use that skill? He's not getting any significant PP time, so how much is he really going to score? I would expect his checking line counterpart, Claude Provost, to out-score him significantly.
Madden-Holik shut down Mario-Jagr with Madden at LW and Holik cheating on draws with Madden ready to step in. You aren’t going to win any puck battles against them. Add Finnigan, the best defensive player of his decade.
As far as checking lines go, that's one of the weaker ones in the draft. Holik especially will get exposed.
If you want to match Madden-Holik-Finnigan against either of New Jersey's top 2 lines, I don't think Green would even try to avoid that.