MLD 2012 Finals: Zambia Mania vs Winston-Salem Polar Twins

[seventieslord]

ZAMBIA MANIA


Bun Cook

Thomas Vanek - Paul Haynes - Jimmy Ward
Ed Sandford "A" - Donald Smith - Eddie Wiseman
Steve Sullivan - Charlie Sands - Billy Gilmour
Dan Maloney - Todd Marchant - Jimmy Roberts "A"
Vladimir Zabrodsky
Wildor Larochelle
Rob Niedermayer

Walt Buswell - Mike Green
Miroslav Dvorak - Doug Young "C"
Mark Streit - Scott Hannan
Al Hamilton

Paddy Moran
Reggie Lemelin

PP1: Thomas Vanek - Paul Haynes - Jimmy Ward - Mark Streit - Mike Green
PP2: Ed Sandford - Donald Smith - Eddie Wiseman - Mark Streit/Miroslav Dvorak - Mike Green/Doug Young

PK1: Todd Marchant - Jimmy Roberts - Walt Buswell - Scott Hannan
PK2: Charlie Sands - Steve Sullivan - Miroslav Dvorak - Doug Young
PK3: Paul Haynes - Jimmy Ward​

VS:

WINSTON-SALEM POLAR TWINS


Fred Scanlan - Ulf Nilsson - Rick Kehoe
Joe Juneau - Bronco Horvath - Gary Dornhoefer
Buzz Boll - Charlie Burns (A) -Serge Bernier
Lorne Henning - Stephane Yelle - Dustin Brown (A)

Arnie Brown - Brad Maxwell
Albert Langlois - Jocelyn Guevremont
Dave Ellett - Garth Butcher (C)

Mike Karakas
Arturs Irbe


Spares
Dolly Swift
Udo Kiessling
Jim Riley​

Power Play 1
Horvath - Nilsson - Kehoe
Ellett - Maxwell

Power Play 2
D. Brown - Juneau - Bernier
A. Brown - Guevremont

Penalty Kill 1
Burns - Henning
A. Brown - Butcher

Penalty Kill 2
Yelle - Juneau
Langlois - Maxwell

Click to read more...

 

[seventieslord]

Zambia is the higher seed and has home ice in a potential game 7.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Slight lineup adjustment... please use the following for my lines.

Looking forward to a great series, guys!

WINSTON-SALEM POLAR TWINS


Fred Scanlan - Ulf Nilsson - Rick Kehoe
Joe Juneau - Bronco Horvath - Gary Dornhoefer
Buzz Boll - Charlie Burns (A) -Serge Bernier
Lorne Henning - Stephane Yelle - Dustin Brown (A)

Arnie Brown - Brad Maxwell
Albert Langlois - Jocelyn Guevremont
Dave Ellett - Garth Butcher (C)

Mike Karakas
Arturs Irbe


Spares
Dolly Swift
Udo Kiessling
Jim Riley​

Power Play 1
Horvath - Nilsson - Kehoe
Ellett - Maxwell

Power Play 2
D. Brown - Juneau - Bernier
A. Brown - Guevremont

Penalty Kill 1
Burns - Henning
A. Brown - Butcher

Penalty Kill 2
Yelle - Juneau
Langlois - Maxwell

 

[Dreakmur]

1st Lines: Vanek-Haynes-Ward vs. Scanlan-Nilsson-Kehoe
-Jimmy Ward and Fred Scanlan are the glue-guys of their respective lines, so I think that’s a good place to start. I really like the work you were able to do on Scanlan, and I think you’ve done a good job showing that he does have the ability to do the puck-winning for a line. Neither he nor Ward is a top-notch corner guy, but both can do the job. The difference here is that Scanlan’s offensive abilities are very weak for first line duty. Jimmy Ward provides all the intangibles you could want, and his offensive abilities – as both a scorer and playmaker – stack up very respectably to the rest of the 1st liners. Ward is definitely the much stronger player here.

-Thomas Vanek and Rick Kehoe are there to score. Both guys have the great shot. Kehoe relies on his speed and Vanek relies on his size. In terms of goal-scoring accomplishments, it looks like Vanek has a significant advantage. Vanek has much more impressive finishes and percentages, and he’s been one of the very best scorers (8th in NHL) since the lock-out. Kehoe, on the other hand, had that one really great season, but never really followed it up. He put up quite a few respectable seasons through the 80s, but nothing overly impressive. Vanek is easily the better scorer, and a better overall player.

-Paul Haynes and Ulf Nilsson are their line’s respective playmakers. Both guys are similar in style – small but gritty guy who thinks pass first. Ulf Nilsson is just a much better offensive player. He’s one of the best centers in the draft, and Haynes is one of the weaker 1st liners. Haynes is better defensively, but that does little to close the gap. Ulf Nilsson has a big edge.

-Overall, Winston-Salem’s line really runs through Nilsson. He’s the best player on either line, and he is really going to drive the success of that line. The wingers are pretty weak, so Nilsson is going to have to carry the line. Conversely, Zambia’s line doesn’t heavily rely on any one player. Haynes is probably weak for his position, but not out of place. The wingers are both quite strong. In a vacuum, I think Zambia’s line is probably a little bit better, but the gap isn’t very wide. In a series, I think it’s easier to build a game-plan to target a single player, so we’ll see if we can figure out a way to shut Nilsson down!

2nd Lines: Sandford-Smith-Wiseman vs. Juneau-Horvath-Dornhoefer
-Ed Sandford and Gary Dornhoefer are the puck-winners. Both guys seem to have similar pedigree as corner men. Dornhoefer might be a little better, since there is more written about him, but he plays in an era where there was just a lot more writing about everybody. It’s tough to really give an edge either way, so I think it’s fair to call them about even. Neither guy is an offensive force, but both guys can contribute a little bit. Sandford might be a bit better, but again it’s too close. Both guys are mutli-time all-stars. Sandford and Dornhoefer appear to be about even.

-Eddie Wiseman and Joe Juneau are there to put up points. In that regard, it’s not even close. Wiseman has much better finishes and much better percentages. Juneau is better defensively, and Wiseman is grittier. Wiseman is easily the better offensive player here.

-Donald Smith and Bronco Horvath are both scoring centers. Once again, Winston-Salem has a significant advantage at center ice, and that center is really going to drive the offense. Smith brings more grit, but that doesn’t close the offensive gap. Horvath has a significant edge.

-Overall, the construction of the 2nd lines is similar to the 1st lines – Zambia has a weaker center and strong wingers, and Winston-Salem has a big edge at center and a disadvantage on the flanks. Horvath and Wiseman are likely the offensive engines, and they seem to be relatively similar in terms of overall offense. I think these lines are pretty close to even.



Overall, the top-6s on these teams are relatively close. Winston-Salem has a significant edge at center, and Zambia has a significant edge on the wings. In my opinion, neither team is going to be able to claim a significant advantage on either top-2 line.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Overall, the top-6s on these teams are relatively close. Winston-Salem has a significant edge at center, and Zambia has a significant edge on the wings. In my opinion, neither team is going to be able to claim a significant advantage on either top-2 line.

I haven't had time yet to do in-depth analysis, but generally speaking I'd agree with the above and with your player-by-player assessments. A couple of disagreements:

-Jimmy Ward and Fred Scanlan are the glue-guys of their respective lines, so I think that’s a good place to start. I really like the work you were able to do on Scanlan, and I think you’ve done a good job showing that he does have the ability to do the puck-winning for a line. Neither he nor Ward is a top-notch corner guy, but both can do the job. The difference here is that Scanlan’s offensive abilities are very weak for first line duty. Jimmy Ward provides all the intangibles you could want, and his offensive abilities – as both a scorer and playmaker – stack up very respectably to the rest of the 1st liners. Ward is definitely the much stronger player here.

I agree that neither would be regarded as an elite corner guy. The strength of Scanlan's offense for a first line is a bit of an open question -- almost all we have to go by are his goal totals, and as a puck-winner and playmaker on his line he obviously wasn't a big goal scorer. It's simple to look at his point finishes and dismiss his offense, but imagine how many good offensive players would look "very weak" if we only had goal totals to judge them by.

The anecdotal evidence indicates that Scanlan was a strong offensive player in his day. Obviously his level of competition was much lower than the MLD, so he won't be an elite offensive player here, but he certainly deserves better than to be described as "very weak".

-Eddie Wiseman and Joe Juneau are there to put up points. In that regard, it’s not even close. Wiseman has much better finishes and much better percentages. Juneau is better defensively, and Wiseman is grittier. Wiseman is easily the better offensive player here.

As noted above, I haven't yet had time to calculate nitty-gritty numbers for these guys. But just looking at the good old adjusted stats, I am not seeing where you get Wiseman as "AINEC" better than Juneau at putting up points.

Juneau: 82, 78, 75, 61, 49, 43, 41, 40, 36, 35, 25, 17, 16 (in 14 GP)

Wiseman: 64, 64, 60, 58, 55, 47, 46, 45, 33, 30

Without seeing Juneau's percentages, I know simply from his career timing that he was up against a golden era of scoring talent in the early 1990s. Wiseman's best seasons were in the late 30s and early 40s, not quite as bad as the mid-40s but still a considerable step down from Juneau's era in terms of what it took to finish high in the scoring race.

So if as you say, both players are here to put up points, how is it that you came to the conclusion that Wiseman has a large advantage? From the numbers above, I can't even figure out a way to argue that Wiseman is even with Juneau as a point scorer.



I'll try and do some more research tomorrow. For the time being, I am inclined to agree that the top-6 on both teams is pretty competitive (as it should be in a Finals!).

 

[Dreakmur]

As noted above, I haven't yet had time to calculate nitty-gritty numbers for these guys. But just looking at the good old adjusted stats, I am not seeing where you get Wiseman as "AINEC" better than Juneau at putting up points.

Juneau: 82, 78, 75, 61, 49, 43, 41, 40, 36, 35, 25, 17, 16 (in 14 GP)

Wiseman: 64, 64, 60, 58, 55, 47, 46, 45, 33, 30

Without seeing Juneau's percentages, I know simply from his career timing that he was up against a golden era of scoring talent in the early 1990s. Wiseman's best seasons were in the late 30s and early 40s, not quite as bad as the mid-40s but still a considerable step down from Juneau's era in terms of what it took to finish high in the scoring race.

So if as you say, both players are here to put up points, how is it that you came to the conclusion that Wiseman has a large advantage? From the numbers above, I can't even figure out a way to argue that Wiseman is even with Juneau as a point scorer.

Juneau only has 4 seasons as a significant offensive producer. 1993-96. The finishes and percentages in those 4 years don't even come close to Wiseman's best 4 seasons. Off the top of my head, Juneau's percentages are 70, 65, 65 and 55.

Wiseman has 90, 75, 75, and 70 as his top 4. He also has another 2 seasons of 60+ and 1 of 50+.

 

[seventieslord]

a good example of percentages being a better indicator than raw adjusted points.

 

[Dreakmur]

a good example of percentages being a better indicator than raw adjusted points.

Now that I'm home, I can look at the exact numbers.

Wiseman - 91, 75, 73, 70, 64, 63, 60, 51
Juneau - 71, 69, 61, and add in a 53 if you remove Jagr as an outlier

 

[Dreakmur]

I agree that neither would be regarded as an elite corner guy. The strength of Scanlan's offense for a first line is a bit of an open question -- almost all we have to go by are his goal totals, and as a puck-winner and playmaker on his line he obviously wasn't a big goal scorer. It's simple to look at his point finishes and dismiss his offense, but imagine how many good offensive players would look "very weak" if we only had goal totals to judge them by.

The anecdotal evidence indicates that Scanlan was a strong offensive player in his day. Obviously his level of competition was much lower than the MLD, so he won't be an elite offensive player here, but he certainly deserves better than to be described as "very weak".

I think we can both agree that Scanlan's goal-scoring is weak for top-6 duty. He was always the 3rd or 4th best scorer on his team, so he clearly was not a major threat to score.

As an offensive threat, that really just leaves his playmaking ability, which is essentially an unknown. Your profile doesn't provide any anecdotal evidence of his playmaking, but it does provide some reconstucted totals from his post-Shamrock days. Those totals are decent. With the evidence you provided, it's not enough to conclude his playmaking is on the same level as a guy like Jimmy Ward.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I think we can both agree that Scanlan's goal-scoring is weak for top-6 duty. He was always the 3rd or 4th best scorer on his team, so he clearly was not a major threat to score.

As an offensive threat, that really just leaves his playmaking ability, which is essentially an unknown. Your profile doesn't provide any anecdotal evidence of his playmaking, but it does provide some reconstucted totals from his post-Shamrock days. Those totals are decent. With the evidence you provided, it's not enough to conclude his playmaking is on the same level as a guy like Jimmy Ward.

I think Scanlan is a lot like Billy Gilmour in that the overall anecdotal accounts are very strong, but the goal scoring stats are very weak. But we have supporting evidence in All-Star teams for Gilmour (a few ECHA all star nods and a couple of "all time all star teams" by prominent hockey people) that we just don't have for Scanlan at this time.

 

[seventieslord]

With what has been provided during this draft, I'd choose Billy Gilmour over Scanlan, either as a scoring line glue guy, or as a utility type bottom 6 player. (I'd certainly prefer to have him as the latter)

 

[tarheelhockey]

I think we can both agree that Scanlan's goal-scoring is weak for top-6 duty. He was always the 3rd or 4th best scorer on his team, so he clearly was not a major threat to score.

Agreed. He is a corner guy and setup man, not a triggerman. He's capable of scoring, but not a guy who should be expected (or asked) to do it with frequency.

As an offensive threat, that really just leaves his playmaking ability, which is essentially an unknown. Your profile doesn't provide any anecdotal evidence of his playmaking, but it does provide some reconstucted totals from his post-Shamrock days. Those totals are decent. With the evidence you provided, it's not enough to conclude his playmaking is on the same level as a guy like Jimmy Ward.

His profile contains a few quotes having to do with his playmaking (look about halfway down), but there's a language issue surrounding just about any player from that era. The word "playmaking" is a bit of hockey jargon that we use as shorthand to express a combination of skating, passing, stick skill, vision, hockey sense and creativity. Since the notion of "playmaking" didn't even exist as such in Scanlan's era, assists were not recorded, and game reports were generally written in narrative format with little space given to analyzing players' skills in detail, trying to put together an image of playmaking ability is like assembling a puzzle where the pieces are specific references to individual skills. If all the pieces are present, the big picture will look like "playmaking".

Could he skate well? Yes, we know he had outstanding speed and was a feared rusher.

Did he have strong stick skills? Almost certainly. Given the fact that the point men generally didn't yet follow the forwards all the way up the ice, we can assume he wasn't just making Bure-style dashes behind the defense alone; in order to rush the puck effectively, he had to have been pretty good at handling the puck with speed against opposition. We know he was good in close corners, too, because he consistently set up his teammates in traffic situations. So generally his puck skills must have been fairly strong.

Could he pass? Probably. This is probably the toughest thing to figure out anecdotally, since a typical game report would say something generic like "Scanlan passed to Trihey for a goal" with little to no description of the pass. We can triangulate the idea that he was at least a decent passer based on his hockey sense and vision (see below), the fact that his linemates consistently had huge goal totals, and the fact that Scanlan was regarded as a great offensive player while having low goal totals. It would be very strange for him to rush around at high speed, not passing well, and not scoring goals, yet still be highly regarded by contemporaries. He must have been able to pass at least decently well or the flaw in his game would have been striking.

Did he have vision/timing/"hockey sense"?: Yes. A variety of sources refer to Scanlan's knack for combining with his linemates to expose gaps in the defense. Other than speed and grit, this is probably the easiest thing to gather from anecdotal accounts with some certainty.


Now just to be clear, I'm not proposing that Scanlan was some kind of elite, Mr. Everything player. He was more of a jack-of-all-trades kind of figure, pretty good at everything but not elite at anything (except possibly his outright speed). That would explain why he was overshadowed by his superstar teammates but still mentioned as a star of the team, why his play was generally praised but rarely singled out in game reports, and why it eventually took him a bit longer to get into the HOF but he still made it. Attempting to prove these things objectively is one of the pitfalls of drafting early-era players; but I think we can give him some benefit of the doubt that if he were "very weak" as an offensive player in that era he would be nowhere near the HOF.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Now that I'm home, I can look at the exact numbers.

Wiseman - 91, 75, 73, 70, 64, 63, 60, 51
Juneau - 71, 69, 61, and add in a 53 if you remove Jagr as an outlier

Could you share where you got those numbers? I don't have Wiseman anywhere near 91 but I'm sure it comes down to using a different calculation.

 

[seventieslord]

Could you share where you got those numbers? I don't have Wiseman anywhere near 91 but I'm sure it comes down to using a different calculation.

1941: He had 40 points when 2nd in the NHL had 44. (91%)

 

[Dreakmur]

Could you share where you got those numbers? I don't have Wiseman anywhere near 91 but I'm sure it comes down to using a different calculation.

I just look at the 2nd leading scorer each season. If Gretzky and Lemieux are 1 and 2, then I'll use 3rd place. If the 2nd place guy is way ahead of 3rd, I'll use 3rd. The only time I used 3rd was for Joe Jumeau in 1996.

 

[seventieslord]

I just look at the 2nd leading scorer each season. If Gretzky and Lemieux are 1 and 2, then I'll use 3rd place. If the 2nd place guy is way ahead of 3rd, I'll use 3rd. The only time I used 3rd was for Joe Jumeau in 1996.

also, regardless of which outliers you remove, it appears pre-expansion players have a disadvantage in the 10-15% range, similar to the disadvantage they have in standard adjusted points.

 

[tarheelhockey]

also, regardless of which outliers you remove, it appears pre-expansion players have a disadvantage in the 10-15% range, similar to the disadvantage they have in standard adjusted points.

How can a player have a 10-15% disadvantage on a percentage score? Wiseman, for example, can't possibly have been at a 10% disadvantage on his 91%...

 

[Dreakmur]

How can a player have a 10-15% disadvantage on a percentage score? Wiseman, for example, can't possibly have been at a 10% disadvantage on his 91%...

Even if you don't take that 10-15% into account, it's very clear that Wiseman as the much stronger offensive producer.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Even if you don't take that 10-15% into account, it's very clear that Wiseman as the much stronger offensive producer.

Well, that's not as clear as you're claiming, but I don't want to discuss it until I know that we're using the same sets of numbers.

 

[seventieslord]

How can a player have a 10-15% disadvantage on a percentage score? Wiseman, for example, can't possibly have been at a 10% disadvantage on his 91%...

of course he could have been. You can score higher than 100%.

Typically speaking, two players who are known or accepted to be around the same canonical value tend to have quite different percentage scores if one played after expansion and one played before. I'm just reporting what I've observed in the numbers.

 

[Dreakmur]

Well, that's not as clear as you're claiming, but I don't want to discuss it until I know that we're using the same sets of numbers.

Looking at their best 4 seasons, Juneau is only produces 82% of Wiseman. That's even before you account for Wiseman have much better 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th seasons. That's before you take 70s' era adjustments.

A 20% difference is signifiacant.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I don't think the best seasons of pre-expansion players are underrated by percentage methods at all.

The problem is that when there are fewer teams in the league, a player's less impressive seasons will be spent on lower lines with less (or no) PP time, and/or in a checking role. And guys who played on lower lines in checking roles before WW2 just didn't score very much. So the "down" seasons of a player will be really underrated by percentages.

 

[tarheelhockey]

of course he could have been. You can score higher than 100%.

Ok, I just want to get my head around this. Gonna make up some numbers rather than get bogged down in the history aspect.

1995
1. Gretzky 150 (outlier)
2. Lemieux 120 (100%)
3. Smith 119 (99%)

1935
1. Morenz 60 (outlier)
2. Conacher 40 (100%)
3. Jones 36 (90%)

Now we add 10-15% to Jones... meaning his season was better from a percentage standpoint than Smith's, correct?

That is, a guy who was 4 points short of 2nd place just surpassed a guy who was 1 point short, based solely on the year in which it happened?

Why?

Edit: Doesn't this also mean that a theoretically limitless number of players who finished above 85% before expansion would outrank any player who finishes 2nd after expansion?

 

[seventieslord]

Ok, I just want to get my head around this. Gonna make up some numbers rather than get bogged down in the history aspect.

1995
1. Gretzky 150 (outlier)
2. Lemieux 120 (100%)
3. Smith 119 (99%)

1935
1. Morenz 60 (outlier)
2. Conacher 40 (100%)
3. Jones 36 (90%)

Now we add 10-15% to Jones... meaning his season was better from a percentage standpoint than Smith's, correct?

That is, a guy who was 4 points short of 2nd place just surpassed a guy who was 1 point short, based solely on the year in which it happened?

Why?

Edit: Doesn't this also mean that a theoretically limitless number of players who finished above 85% before expansion would outrank any player who finishes 2nd after expansion?

did Smith benefit from Gretzky or Lemieux? As the benchmark I use the #2 scorer that was not Gretzky or Lemieux or a direct beneficiary of those two.

Also, don't get too caught up in the comparison of one single season to another single season. It's typically a block of seasons being compared to another block.

I've personally found that adding approximately 10-15% for pre-expansion players leads to comparisons that make a lot more sense on the surface.As an example, the best offensive post-expansion players remaining right now (based on the sum of their best 6 percentage scores) are about 10-15% higher than the best offensive pre-expansion players remaining right now. So either everyone's player evaluation system is way out of whack, and we've literally drafted dozens too many pre-expansion players while ignoring dozens of more deserving post-expansion players, or adjusted points systems favour post-expansion players. the counts of players we've drafted from each period don't really justify the former being the case.

But in any case, I think focusing on one season is not seeing the forest for the trees.

 

[tarheelhockey]

I've personally found that adding approximately 10-15% for pre-expansion players leads to comparisons that make a lot more sense on the surface.As an example, the best offensive post-expansion players remaining right now (based on the sum of their best 6 percentage scores) are about 10-15% higher than the best offensive pre-expansion players remaining right now. So either everyone's player evaluation system is way out of whack, and we've literally drafted dozens too many pre-expansion players while ignoring dozens of more deserving post-expansion players, or adjusted points systems favour post-expansion players. the counts of players we've drafted from each period don't really justify the former being the case.

This absolutely makes sense to me when talking about adjusted stats. But it doesn't make sense when talking about percentages.

Just as an example (and I realize this goes back to the thing about single seasons) one could say that Wiseman's 40-point 1941 was considerably better than Marcel Dionne's 130-point 1979. Wiseman adjusts up to 101-106% and Dionne is stuck at a measly 97%. Common sense should tell us there is something WAY off about a metric that would produce this result.

If you prefer 5-year increments -- I count as many as 11 players in the 1937-41 period (Apps, Drillon, Schriner, Colville, S. Howe, Blake, Watson, Wiseman, Patrick, Schmidt) who would rank higher than Mark Messier's 4th-overall finish from 1987-91. That's just obviously incorrect.

Perhaps we should take this over to the Numbers board for a more detailed discussion. For now, I'll use the numbers that Dreakmur presented since those seem to be agreed upon by the 3 GMs in the series.