Mickey Ion divisional semi-finals: St. Louis Eagles vs. Philadelphia Phantoms

[VanIslander]

Mickey Ion divisional semi-final round:


St. Louis Eagles

coach Bun Cook

Alex Shibicky - Marc Savard - Mac Colville
Alex Semin - Jaroslav Holik - Jason Pominville
Andre Boudrias - Paul Haynes - David Backes (A)
Baldy Cotton - Keith Acton (A) - Dallas Drake (C)


Doug Jarrett - Kris Letang
Roman Hamrlik - Brent Seabrook
Anders Eldebrink - Bob Murdoch
Jack Campbell, Lou Fontinato

Wilf Cude
Arturs Irbe


vs.


Philadelphia Phantoms

coaches Jan Starsi & Jaroslav Pitner

Don Lever (C) - Barry Pederson - Eddie Wiseman
Vaclav Prospal - Dave Gagner - Steve Sullivan
Jeff Friesen - Daymond Langkow (A) - Bill Fairbairn
Dave Tippett - Mike Fisher - Rich Preston

Dave Babych (A) - Bingo Kampman
Joe Watson - Bruce Driver
Mark Streit - Larry Hillman

Don Edwards
Dan Bouchard


​

Click to read more...

 

[VanIslander]

Post your special teams, any of your extra skaters you might want to sub-in in this series or any other information.

The format of the first post is standardized for easy, clean, equal comparison, both teams viewable without having to scroll down.

The second seed versus third seed.

Have a good series!

 

[BillyShoe1721]

Ah, my old nemesis BBS(RS now). Is this the third draft in a row we've squared off in the playoffs? This, last ATD, and the AAA Draft in 2012. Educated, and spirited debates occurred in the last two, and I expect nothing less this go around.

Philadelphia Phantoms

Coach: Jan Starsi & Jaroslav Pitner
Captain: Don Lever
Assistant Captains: Dave Babych, Daymond Langkow

Don Lever-Barry Pederson-Eddie Wiseman
Vaclav Prospal-Dave Gagner-Steve Sullivan
Jeff Friesen-Daymond Langkow-Bill Fairbairn
Dave Tippett-Mike Fisher-Rich Preston
Billy McGimsie
Andre Pronovost

Dave Babych-Bingo Kampman
Joe Watson-Bruce Driver
Mark Streit-Larry Hillman
Percy Traub

Don Edwards
Dan Bouchard

PP1

Jeff Friesen-Barry Pederson-Eddie Wiseman
Dave Babych-Bruce Driver

PP2

Vaclav Prospal-Dave Gagner-Steve Sullivan
Mark Streit-Larry Hillman

PK1

Dave Tippett-Don Lever
Joe Watson-Bingo Kampman

PK2

Barry Pederson-Bill Fairbairn
Dave Babych-Larry Hillman​

 

[Rob Scuderi]

St. Louis Eagles

Coach: Bun Cook

Alex Shibicky - Marc Savard - Mac Colville
Alex Semin - Jaroslav Holik - Jason Pominville
Andre Boudrias - Paul Haynes - David Backes (A)
Baldy Cotton - Keith Acton (A) - Dallas Drake (C)
Olli Jokinen, Dave Reid

Roman Hamrlik - Brent Seabrook
Doug Jarrett - Kris Letang
Anders Eldebrink - Bob Murdoch
Jack Campbell, Lou Fontinato

Wilf Cude
Arturs Irbe

PP1
Shibicky-Savard-Semin
Hamrlik-Pominville

PP2
Boudrias-Haynes-Holik
Eldebrink-Letang

PK1
Acton-Drake
Jarrett-Murdoch

PK2
Boudrias-Backes
Hamrlik-Seabrook

Looking forward to another good series Billy, this looks really close at first glance.

Made some changes to the PP units. Letang is being bumped down to the second unit with Pominville taking his spot on the first and Semin taking Pominville's old spot up front. Jaroslav Holik will take Semin's vacated spot on the second unit.

Another change, we'll be flipping our top two defensive pairs. Seabrook was our top defenseman in all-star voting and Hamrlik's good enough to be a #1 in the MLD so I don't think we're giving anything up despite having a good showing in the regular season voting with Jarrett-Letang as the top pair. Jarrett's good enough to play on a top pair so he'll be a nice option on the second pair. Letang's lack of longevity should be less of a concern when he's being compared to 3/4s rather than 1/2s.

 

[BillyShoe1721]

You knew I was going to go after Letang, good move IMO.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Man, I think Jarett-Letang is clearly better than Hamrlik-Seabrook

 

[bluesfan94]

I think Hamrlik is more than capable of being a #1 in the MLD. Seabrook apparently is loved by the general ATD community

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I think Hamrlik is more than capable of being a #1 in the MLD. Seabrook apparently is loved by the general ATD community

Don't pay any attention to me; it's more that I like the Jarrett - Letang pairing than anything, but apparently that sentiment isn't shared as much by the other GMs

 

[BillyShoe1721]

First Lines

Savard and Pederson are two of the best centers in this; Savard voted #1 and Pederson #4. Savard holds the offensive advantage, but doesn't bring much else to the table. He got better towards the end of his career in Boston, but he's an average defensive player at best. Pederson brings a valuable two-way game to the table with three top 15 finishes in Selke voting, in addition to strong scoring.

Savard: 92, 84, 80, 74, 68, 60, 56, 48, 42(6 year total 458)
Pederson: 86, 84, 70, 63, 54, 54(6 year total 411)

Savard has him in 6 years and longevity on top of that. The difference in 6 years is 11.4%. In terms of team leading:

Savard: 4, 4, 2, 5, 4, 2, 1, 1, 1(6 year avg. 1.833)
Pederson: 2, 1, 1, 4, 2, 3(6 year avg. 2.167)

Advantage to Savard there as well. Pederson makes up a little ground in playoff scoring with a PPG increase of .60, but Savard was pretty good in the limited time he was in the playoffs, basically maintaining the same PPG.

Shibicky and Wiseman are the scoring wingers on this line, so I'll compare them despite the fact that they're opposite wings.

Shibicky: 80, 75, 74, 63, 55, 49(6 year total 346)
Wiseman: 90, 75, 73, 73, 70, 63, 60, 51(6 year total 444)

Pretty big advantage there to Wiseman, and he's got two good years in addition to that. The difference in 6 years is 28.3%. Scoring among teammates is tough on these guys because of the small number of teams, but here they are:

Shibicky: 6, 4, 5, 4, 7, 4
Wiseman: 6, 4, 3, 3, 5, 7, 2, 4

Neither really brings much in terms of intangibles so Wiseman's offensive advantage makes him the superior winger.

That brings us to glue guys Lever and Colville:

Colville: 70, 64, 64, 56, 49, 42(6 year total 345)
Lever: 57, 55, 54, 54, 47, 45, 45, 43(6 year total 312)

I'm not sure how much of a boost Colville deserves because he was pre-expansion considering the fact that he was a clear third wheel of his line with Shibicky and Neil Colville. Seventies usually recommends 15%, I think something more 7-10% is suitable. Colville was known to have some glue-guy abilities with that quote about board-work and backchecking. Lever brings much of the same, with more substantiated defense.

6 year offense of both lines(giving 15% boost to all pre-expansion guys):

Lever: 312
Pederson: 411
Wiseman: 511

Total: 1,234

Shibicky: 398
Savard: 458
Colville: 397

Total: 1,253

Basically, they're very close offensively. I thought a 15% boost would be too generous to Colville, but it turns out he was nearly an offensive equal to Shibicky. Savard has longevity Pederson doesn't, and Lever/Wiseman have longevity that Colville/Shibicky don't. Colville/Shibicky had their productive years shortened by the war, so it's tough to punish them for not having longevity when it looked like they had productive years left. With a slight advantage to St. Louis offensively, let's look at intangibles. I think Philadelphia holds a pretty sizable advantage in terms of defensive ability. Lever and Pederson were both noted two-way players, and have a combined four top 15s in Selke voting between them, unheard of for a first line that doesn't include Anze Kopitar. Philadelphia's first line is arguably the best defensively in the draft, along with Cornwall. Neither line is particularly tough. I think a pretty sizable difference in defensive ability, and longevity advantages for Wiseman/Lever is enough to overcome the slight offensive disadvantage over 6 years to give Philadelphia a slight advantage.

Don't pay any attention to me; it's more that I like the Jarrett - Letang pairing than anything, but apparently that sentiment isn't shared as much by the other GMs

I had Jarrett pretty high in AS voting, so I was surprised he didn't make any of the teams. I'm just not a big fan of Letang on a first pairing. He can be a useful MLD defenseman if he's sheltered, but I think first pairing would be too much for him.

 

[bluesfan94]

I think you're underrating Colville's defense. He was really the defensive conscious of a fantastic line.

Neil Colville was more the scorer while Mac, 17 months younger, paid attention to defensive play.

"I did all the backchecking," Mac told The Globe and Mail of Toronto in 1986. "Old Lester Patrick told us never to give the puck away because the other team couldn't score if we had it," he added, referring to the Rangers' general manager.

 

[Rob Scuderi]

6 year offense of both lines(giving 15% boost to all pre-expansion guys):

Lever: 312
Pederson: 411
Wiseman: 511

Total: 1,234

Shibicky: 398
Savard: 458
Colville: 397

Total: 1,253

Basically, they're very close offensively. I thought a 15% boost would be too generous to Colville, but it turns out he was nearly an offensive equal to Shibicky. Savard has longevity Pederson doesn't, and Lever/Wiseman have longevity that Colville/Shibicky don't. Colville/Shibicky had their productive years shortened by the war, so it's tough to punish them for not having longevity when it looked like they had productive years left. With a slight advantage to St. Louis offensively, let's look at intangibles. I think Philadelphia holds a pretty sizable advantage in terms of defensive ability. Lever and Pederson were both noted two-way players, and have a combined four top 15s in Selke voting between them, unheard of for a first line that doesn't include Anze Kopitar. Philadelphia's first line is arguably the best defensively in the draft, along with Cornwall. Neither line is particularly tough. I think a pretty sizable difference in defensive ability, and longevity advantages for Wiseman/Lever is enough to overcome the slight offensive disadvantage over 6 years to give Philadelphia a slight advantage.

Definitely a fair analysis, but I just don't think Pederson and Lever are that special defensively to push Philly's line ahead. There's a reason that a handful of 10ish Selke finishes are one of the best top lines defensively here. Offense is the focus of top lines and save Kopitar, there's no real defensive stalwarts on a top line in the whole draft.

Pederson's 11th place finish was 2 first place votes, I don't know how many votes he got when he finished 10th. Same thing with Lever's 6 Selke voting points but no votes listed. I'm not sure it's so unbelievable that Colville would have received a pair of Selke votes in one of his seasons considering his main role on a high skilled scoring line was backchecking.

I was a bit hesitant about Colville's offense for a top line, but with the chemistry and skillset he seemed a good fit. Yet he's better offensively than Lever while losing 3 prime years to the war and then losing his brother as a linemate after the war.

We're talking about top lines here and Lever's mediocre scoring sticks out to me. I like Lever, but I think he's a little over his head offensively as I worried Colville would be.

 

[Dreakmur]

I think you're underrating Colville's defense. He was really the defensive conscious of a fantastic line.

How much weight should a player's opinion of himself matter?

 

[vecens24]

Yep, I'm going to come to the defense of Letang here. Why is he worse than Kampman? I think he's pretty clearly better.

-Letang has clearly the best Norris/AS voting of any defenseman in this series.

-Letang has already played one more season than Kampman (even though there are mitigating circumstances with the war).

-#2 on a Cup winner, 3x #1 on playoff teams, one more time #2.

-Good ES scorer/puck mover (to the tune of being 25% ahead of 2nd place this season in ES scoring among D, with a couple other top 15s).

I'd actually kind of agree in saying that he shouldn't be a top unit PP, but he's definitely fine on a ES top pairing here.

 

[BillyShoe1721]

I think you're underrating Colville's defense. He was really the defensive conscious of a fantastic line.

I had Colville last year in the AAA Draft, so I know a good bit about him. I could have sworn I made a bio for him, but looking back I can't find one. From what I remember, that is the only quote I found about his defensive play. He's definitely a good defensive player, but I'm not seeing how his defensive play is as proven or substantiated as Lever or Pederson.

2nd Lines

Both these lines are pretty similar in construction, and are rare lines with playmaking wingers and a goalscoring center. The wings are all post-expansion, so VsX should be a pretty good indicator, and Gagner/Holik played a very similar style.

Prospal: 76, 75, 67, 62, 61, 59, 57, 53, 53, 48, 41(6 year total 400)
Sullivan: 84, 78, 69, 67, 64, 59, 53, 49, 46(6 year total 421)
Semin: 77, 77, 72, 64, 56, 55(6 year total 401)
Pominville: 75, 75, 61, 60, 60, 57, 53(6 year total 388)

So for 6 years, Prospal/Semin are basically the same, and Prospal has 5 more years with scores above 40, so at peak they're basically the same, and Prospal has strong longevity that Semin doesn't have. Semin is noted as being a lackadaisical defensive player, and Prospal isn't Bob Gainey in terms of intangibles, but he's shown an ability to improve his defensive play and physicality as his career has gone on. Prospal holds the advantage here.

In terms of 6 year offense, Sullivan outscores Pominville by 33, and they have an identical seventh season. Sullivan has two more seasons of above 40 scoring, and Pominville doesn't have any, giving Sullivan an advantage in peak and longevity. Both are pretty soft, and have received token Selke support throughout their career. Sullivan received token votes over 3 years, and Pominville over 4 years. Pominville has a slight defensive advantage, but not big enough to make up for a bigger offensive advantage for Sullivan.

For completion's sake, here are their finishes among teammates:

Prospal: 4, 2, 1, 2, 2, 5, 3, 5, 2, 2, 1(7 year avg. 1.71)
Sullivan: 2, 1, 5, 1, 1/1, 2, 4, 2(7 year avg. 1.86)
Semin: 2, 5, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2(7 year avg. 2.86)
Pominville: 4, 2, 2, 3, 3, 1, 2/3(7 year avg. 2.5)

Slashes are when they were traded mid-season and where they would stand for either team given their total point total that season. This re-affirms the offensive advantage for Prospal and Sullivan on the wings.

That brings us to Jaroslav Holik and Gagner. Holik played in a better Czech league than Cerny, so I'll give him that, but his finishes domestically don't seem all that impressive. 1, 2, 2, 3, 6 are the ones listed in his bio, occurring in 66, 67, 69, 72, and 74 respectively. He's also has two strong WC performances to his name in 1969 and 1972. His longevity is pretty poor though. I'm really not sure where he would stand compared to Gagner. Holik seems more of a big brute with weaker skating that was physical with his big size, and Gagner a smaller guy that was faster, and more of an annoying physical guy. I'm not sure how to quantify their respective offensive abilities, but you'd have to think pretty highly of Holik's five seasons of top 6s in the Czech league to take it over Gagner's 10 seasons of useful production in the NHL.

With pretty clear advantages at both wing spots, I think Philadelphia has the advantage in 2nd lines. Center is tough to call with two guys that played a similar style, but in very different circumstances. LWs don't bring much in terms of intangibles, RWs bring a similar amount of defense. Centers are similar tough, two-way players with decent offense.

 

[BillyShoe1721]

Definitely a fair analysis, but I just don't think Pederson and Lever are that special defensively to push Philly's line ahead. There's a reason that a handful of 10ish Selke finishes are one of the best top lines defensively here. Offense is the focus of top lines and save Kopitar, there's no real defensive stalwarts on a top line in the whole draft.

Pederson's 11th place finish was 2 first place votes, I don't know how many votes he got when he finished 10th. Same thing with Lever's 6 Selke voting points but no votes listed. I'm not sure it's so unbelievable that Colville would have received a pair of Selke votes in one of his seasons considering his main role on a high skilled scoring line was backchecking.

We're talking about top lines here and Lever's mediocre scoring sticks out to me. I like Lever, but I think he's a little over his head offensively as I worried Colville would be.

Lever's definitely no offensive juggernaut at this level. In the VsX study you did, he comes out 47th among wingers, theoretically making him one of the worst top 6 wingers in the draft. But in terms of guys that are top 6 glue guys, he good enough for me. He's ahead of Corson, Mellanby, and Crowder at least, and then consider the fact that he always played on teams that were pretty bad, and received little help in terms of offense.

Other than Kopitar, there aren't any defensive juggernauts on first lines, but this is the MLD. The guys that could be considered very good defensively while being first liners offensively were selected in the ATD. Looking through the roster thread, I think Philadelphia's first line is unquestionably top 2 defensively with Cornwall(who admitted their first line is a matchup line). So the fact that my line is right with yours offensively while being stronger defensively says something.

How much weight should a player's opinion of himself matter?

I hadn't thought of that, but it's something to think about.

Yep, I'm going to come to the defense of Letang here. Why is he worse than Kampman? I think he's pretty clearly better.

-Letang has clearly the best Norris/AS voting of any defenseman in this series.

If we're taking modern AS/Norris at face value for offensive defensemen, Mark Streit is one of the best defensemen in the draft.

-#2 on a Cup winner, 3x #1 on playoff teams, one more time #2.

Kampman was also a #2 on a cup winner, and it was when there were only 7 teams in the league. The Leafs also made the finals in two more years when Kampman was on the team, and going by AS voting, he was the #1 defenseman on the 1939-40 Leafs that took the Finals to 6 games.

-Good ES scorer/puck mover (to the tune of being 25% ahead of 2nd place this season in ES scoring among D, with a couple other top 15s).

I'd actually kind of agree in saying that he shouldn't be a top unit PP, but he's definitely fine on a ES top pairing here.

Letang is certainly a better offensive defenseman than Kampman, but I still think Kampman is better, and the rest of the draft agrees. Kampman was ranked 6th in the AS voting, and Letang wasn't mentioned.

 

[bluesfan94]

How much weight should a player's opinion of himself matter?

The quote isn't just Colville on himself, it's the blog, too, which we use in almost every bio.

 

[BillyShoe1721]

I'm going away for the weekend so I'm going to try to get as much done as possible, and then rebut what I can before voting once I get back.

Third Lines

Friesen: 69, 65, 59, 57, 53, 50, 48, 43(6 year total 353)
Langkow: 69, 67, 61, 60, 56, 56, 53, 50(6 year total 369)
Fairbairn: 65, 65, 58, 50, 48, 30(6 year total 316)

Total: 1,038

Boudrias: 71, 67, 66, 63, 61, 52(6 year total 380)
Haynes: 93, 86, 80, 60, 58, 24(6 year total 461), 15% boost applied
Backes: 63, 56, 49, 49, 44, 29(6 year total 290)

Total: 1,131

St. Louis comes out ahead due to Paul Haynes. The wings are basically equal, with Fairbairn being ahead of Backes by basically the same amount Boudrias is ahead of Friesen. Offensively, St. Louis has the edge. Backes and Boudrias are both physical players; Fairbairn is about as physical as them and Langkow/Friesen have a little grit. Defensively, it depends upon how you view Haynes' defensive abilities. Backes has the best Selke resume compared to Freisen/Langkow. Boudrias/Fairbairn played mostly before Selke voting and don't have records and Haynes obviously doesn't. Overall, St. Louis has a better 3rd line.

4th Lines

Philadelphia's better defensively, St. Louis better offensively. Eagles went for a two-way line, I went with as pure a shutdown unit as possible. In a vacuum, I probably have the worst 4th line in the draft. They'll serve different purposes with the Eagles probably rolling 4 lines and the Phantoms using the 4th line for shutdown duty when necessary against top 6 lines and holding a lead.

 

[BubbaBoot]

Letang is certainly a better offensive defenseman than Kampman, but I still think Kampman is better, and the rest of the draft agrees. Kampman was ranked 6th in the AS voting, and Letang wasn't mentioned.

Have to agree. Letang is a bit of a paper tiger. If you run him and don't give him room or time to make a decision he'll cough it up more times than not and/or make a hasty and ill timed pass....but with Jarvis he has a good, compatible mate who can cover for him on the physical side.

 

[VanIslander]

Have to agree. Letang is a bit of a paper tiger. If you run him and don't give him room or time to make a decision he'll cough it up more times than not and/or make a hasty and ill timed pass...

Absolutely! I like him but the above nails his career to date.

At the MLD level of competition he's a 3/4 dman and 1st pp unit guy playing with a stalwart.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

IMO, Letang is suffering from some serious anti-modern bias here due to his atrocious performance in the 2013 playoffs. In 5-10 years, nobody will think of it as anything more important than any other series, but now it's the freshest thing in everyone's mind

 

[BillyShoe1721]

First Pairings

AS Voting

Babych: 9, 11, 14
Kampman: 5, 7, 8

Hamrlik: 7
Seabrook: 10, 1 vote in 2011

This isn't really close. Hamrlik-Seabrook has more of the look of a solid 2nd pairing(which is what it was), not a first pairing. Hamrlik has five top 20 finishes in points, Babych has 7, and three top fives to Hamrlik's zero. Seabrook brings better offense than Kampman, but they're here to be more defensive defensemen, and Kampman is better at that.

First pairings are a pretty clear advantage to Philadelphia.

 

[bluesfan94]

Have to agree. Letang is a bit of a paper tiger. If you run him and don't give him room or time to make a decision he'll cough it up more times than not and/or make a hasty and ill timed pass....but with Jarvis he has a good, compatible mate who can cover for him on the physical side.

How much of that is due to the fact that we just saw him do that in one series of a playoff as opposed to something that should be considered in an all time basis? We simply may not know enough about non-modern players to be able to nitpick on one series like we can for Letang.

 

[BillyShoe1721]

Second Pairings

As I mentioned, I was surprised Jarret wasn't ranked on any of the all star teams. He's got a decent AS record of 7, t-11, 14, and another year where he got a vote. Joe Watson has 11, 16, 16, and another year where he received a vote. Watson was named to the 3rd AS team here, 17th overall meaning people see him a slightly above average #2, so he should be a strong #3 and seventies said he saw him as a great #3, so I guess the fact that he was the ES ice time leader for the two Flyers cup winners and hefty penalty killer for strong PKs resonated with people. I guess AS voting back in the day didn't really work in his favor because the Flyers' defense was seen as a nondescript group that didn't have any studs, and Watson was a no-flash, no nonsense player.

That brings us to Driver and Letang. I don't see Driver as anything special here, and I don't think Letang is either. His AS record is 3, 6, 9, but taking that at face value is not a real indication of his play. I just checked on vecens saying Letang was a #2 on the 08-09 cup team, in the regular season he was #4 in average ES TOI, but Gonchar/Whitney were limited by injuries in the regular season, so he was #2 of guys that played a lot of games. But once playoffs rolled around, he was 4th in total TOI and 6th in ESTOI.

Letang's got three very good years offensively that Driver can't touch, but beyond that, his offense doesn't amount to much. In Letang's two best seasons, he missed a good amount of time so a comparison of adjusted points isn't fair straight up. Letang's adjusted PPG is .581 over 385 games(giving him 41 points for 12-13). Driver's is .476 over 922 games. In Driver's "best 398" games, his adjusted PPG is .555, a difference of just 2.6%, not including the longevity Driver has on top of that as a useful point producing defenseman. But, Letang's got an AS record(how much he deserved it is another thing), and Driver doesn't have one at all. I'll give Letang the advantage overall, but offensively they are not far apart, if at all.

I'm not sure how to call this. Our fellow GMs put Watson as the best defenseman of the 4 here. Letang is better than Driver, but how much? They're both here for their offense, which I just showed is very close.

 

[BillyShoe1721]

3rd Pairings

Streit and Eldebrink are clearly the puck-movers of these pairings, but they're difficult to compare. Eldebrink played a short time in the NHL at a young age and struggled, and left. Had he stuck it out or come when he was older, things would have been much different(much like Streit). Put 21-22 year old Streit in the NHL and he wouldn't be able to hack it either. Eldebrink has some impressive finishes internationally, being what looks like the second or third best offensive defenseman from ~1985-90 behind Fetisov and with Kasatonov. From 1984-90 in Canada Cups/Olympics/WC/Rendezvous their point totals were:

Fetisov: 96 points in 80 games(1.2PPG)
Kasatonov: 56 points in 76 games(.737PPG)
Eldebrink: 41 points in 66 games(.621PPG)

That's the vast majority of Eldebrink's international resume, and the entire productive part of it. To believe Eldebrink is better than Streit, you would have to think that there were only ~15 better offensive defensemen in the NHL at the time(I include 15 because of the depth at offensive defensemen in this era compared to Streit). Those names include Coffey, Bourque, MacInnis, Housley, Murphy, Wilson, Suter, Howe, Babych, Stevens, Chelios, Larson, Ramage, Carlyle, Patrick, Reinhart, Robinson, Bodger, etc. So he'd have to be something like the 17th best offensive defenseman(being pretty generous) of his day to equal Streit, and I don't think that's the case given the names above. Over Streit's 6 year peak(really 7 total years for everyone else as he missed an entire season during that span) he's still 11th in points by defensemen. I think Streit is the superior offensive defenseman.

That brings us to Hillman and Murdoch. For being known as defensive guys, they put up some respectable point totals, with Hillman having the better offensive resume. He's got two AS finishes of 12th and 14th with a Norris finish in a third separate year(which I've always found odd) of 11th. Murdoch has one AS finish of 11th. With an advantage in voting and offense, Hillman comes out as the better player.

With advantages for both defensemen over their St. Louis counterparts, Philadelphia has the advantage in 3rd pairings.

Goalies

Edwards was voted the second best goalie in the draft, and Cude wasn't mentioned, although I think I had him somewhere on my ballot. Cude has two 2nd team AS finishes, Edwards has two also but 3rd, 4th, and 5th place finishes on top of that. Goaltending advantage Philadelphia.

Coaching

I'm not sure coaching is going to play much into this matchup because we typically aren't big fans of line matching, but the left-wing lock system used by Starsi and Pitner was used to successfully neutralize the speedy Soviet wingers, and we think this strategy should prove useful against St. Louis' wingers who possess a good amount of speed.

If I've got time, I'll do special teams at some point, but I'm not banking on it. Expect my responses to start flooding in Sunday night.

 

[Rob Scuderi]

Lever's definitely no offensive juggernaut at this level. In the VsX study you did, he comes out 47th among wingers, theoretically making him one of the worst top 6 wingers in the draft. But in terms of guys that are top 6 glue guys, he good enough for me. He's ahead of Corson, Mellanby, and Crowder at least, and then consider the fact that he always played on teams that were pretty bad, and received little help in terms of offense.

None of those guys are in this series, Mac Colville is. Even my third liner Andre Boudrias is a healthy 10 points ahead in the vsX scores I posted. Lever's just a very average player for a top line. He's not as fearsome as some of the other guys you listed and not a great defensive player. More of a hardworker type with only ok offense.

Other than Kopitar, there aren't any defensive juggernauts on first lines, but this is the MLD. The guys that could be considered very good defensively while being first liners offensively were selected in the ATD. Looking through the roster thread, I think Philadelphia's first line is unquestionably top 2 defensively with Cornwall(who admitted their first line is a matchup line). So the fact that my line is right with yours offensively while being stronger defensively says something.

And my point is there's a reason it's unquestionably top 2 defensively in the draft with a handful of middling Selke recognition. You overstate what that really means, especially when we're comparing top lines.

They're only close offensively because you're using vsX sums and Wiseman's great. Looking at individual parts, it's an obvious advantage in 2/3 players and then an obvious advantage for you in the third.