MLD #9 Round One - Regina Capitals versus Belleville Bulls

[Transplanted Caper]

Regina Capitals
Rusty Crawford (C) - Dennis Maruk - Bill Guerin
Todd Bertuzzi - Josef Malecek - Scott Young
Patrik Sundstrom - Rick Meagher - Jimmy Peters Sr.
Darryl Sutter - Bruce MacGregor - Alf Skinner (A)

Dickie Boon - Jeff Beukeboom
Bob Murray - Paul Shmyr (A)
Bobby Rowe - Howard McNamara

Percy Lesueur
Henrik Lundqvist

Extras:
RW Alex Shibicky
LW/C Mike Krushelnyski
D Alan "Eagle Eye" Cameron

Coach: Art Ross

PP1: Bertuzzi-Malecek-Guerin-Boon-Murray
PP2: Crawford-Maruk-Young-Shmyr-Rowe
PK1: Sundstrom-Meagher-Beukeboom-McNamara
PK2: Peters-Crawford-Boon-Shmyr

Belleville Bulls
Head Coach: Randy Carlyle
Assistant Coach: Guy Carbonneau
Captain: Don Lever
Assistant Captain: Al Arbour
Assistant Captain: Tommy Smith



Alex Tanguay - Tommy Smith (A) - Corb Denneny
Smokey Harris - Ed Olczyk - Mark Napier
Don Lever (C) - Kelly Kisio - Mush March
Ethan Moreau - Stephane Yelle - Leroy Goldsworthy
Saku Koivu

Al Arbour (A) - Phat Wilson
Gord Fraser - Uwe Krupp
Gord Lane - Jocelyn Guevremont
Marty Burke

Wilf Cude
Arturs Irbe

Click to read more...

 

[seventieslord]

Good luck Belleville. I wish I had more time to go over the matchup tonight. Go ahead, get in the first word I will try to make time during work tomorrow.

 

[chaosrevolver]

Good luck Regina. Ill try to persuade the public later tonight or tommorow. Crazy night of homework.

 

[seventieslord]

Real quickly....

Goaltending is a real strength for both teams. I love Wilf Cude - he's got the first all-star team nods and went to a couple finals. Lesueur is the MLD's top goalie, though. No ATD goalie has two cups, Competed in 4 SCF's, and none had a season as dominant as his 1906 season. For six years he was one of hockey's three best - there are goalies who can say that, but they were all taken long ago, in the ATD.

I like Belleville's strength down the middle. Tommy Smith was definitely a steal. Not sold on the top pairing on defense. Al Arbour and Phat Wilson could probably both be complementary top pairing guys, but there is no #1 stud there. I think Krupp and Lane are a bit of a dropoff from the rest, whereas Regina has no such dropoff.

I count 21 cups on your roster and 25 on mine... no major edge, but a slight advantage. I also like that Art Ross is my coach, with 20 years of coaching experience and a stanley cup. Randy Carlyle's career has been short and inconsistent to this point.

I always like to look at a player's career regular season PPG and compare it to their playoff PPG to see who has a history of stepping up. (using just top pro hockey as a measuring stick) Where effective useable data doesn't exist I have not included the player.

Crawford: 0.67 0.67 0%
Maruk: 0.99 1.06 +7%
Guerin: 0.69 0.48 -30%
Bertuzzi: 0.73 0.50 -32%
Malecek - N/A
Young: 0.64 0.62 -3%
Sundstrom: 0.87 0.70 -20%
Meagher 0.45 0.24 -47%
Peters 0.48 0.23 -52%
Sutter 0.69 0.84 +22%
MacGregor 0.53 0.44 -17%
Skinner 0.60 0.60 0%
Shibicky 0.62 0.62 0%
Krushelnyski 0.63 0.52 -17%
Boon: N/A
Beukeboom: .20 .19 -5%
Shmyr: .46 .38 -17%
Murray: .51 .50 -2%
Rowe: .52 .48 -8%
McNamara: N/A
Cameron: N/A

Average per player: -13.0%

Tanguay: .89 .60 -33%
Smith: 1.55 1.75 +13%
Denneny: .83 .44 -47%
Harris: .96 .79 -18%
Olczyk: .77 .60 -22%
Napier .79 .51 -35%
Lever .67 .57 -15%
Kisio .86 .57 -37%
March .50 .60 +20%
Moreau .33 .20 -39%
Yelle .28 .20 -29%
Goldsworthy .37 .04 -89%
Koivu .81 .90 +11%
Al Arbour: .11 .10 -9%
Wilson: N/A
Fraser: .31 .27 -13%
Krupp .39 .36 -8%
Lane .21 .23 +10%
Guevremont .54 .53 -2%
Burke: N/A

Team average: -17.8 per player

I think this shows that my players do a better job of coming close to maintaining their regular season production when the going gets rough.

 

[seventieslord]

Truly though, most of our offense will come from our top-6 forwards. Mine have an average playoff dropoff of 9.5% and Belleville's have an average dropoff of 23.7%.

 

[vancityluongo]

Other than my own series, I feel this one is the closest. IIRC, I had these teams right next to each other in the regular season.

 

[chaosrevolver]

Alright well we feel our biggest strength relies in the offense. Some think we overrate it but we feel a top-6 with the players that we have in it, is going to always make an impact. We have one of the best players in the draft with Smith, a great player in Dennenny, a playmaking leftwinger who has had playoff success in Tanguay, a big playmaking center in Olczyk that any team would like to have, Smokey Williams is an excellent winger for the second line and finally Mark Napier who has had proven success with 30+ goals 3 times at the NHL level.

Our third line features two wingers who were arguably on the best 3rd line in the last MLD. We felt putting March and Lever back together was a good idea and we picked a very deadly two-way forward in Kisio to play with them. Whether or not they score much or not, they will be the shutdown line who will create as many chances as possible from turnovers.

The fourth line features Moreau-Yelle who again were on a line that many thought were strong in the last MLD. They are proven tough guys who bring alot of pressence on and off the ice. Adding a guy Leroy Goldsworthy compliments them well.


We know our defense isnt the best in the draft. But it has some very good players. Though we dont have a #1 we believe one through six it is solid. Al Arbour is a nice presence to have with the purely offensive Phat Wilson. Then we believe that Gord Fraser and Uwe Krupp is a nice two-way pairing to have. Fraser was good in all 3 parts of the ice. Gord Lane was credited as the most effective defenseman during the Islanders 4 year cup run. Hes a shutdown defenseman and we feel he is definetly more than responsible for taking care of his own end. Hes paired with Jocelyn Guevremont who also had ability as well as a good defenseman.

We know we dont have the best goaltender in this series, but Wilf Cude is far from a weakness for us. As good as Lesuer was, this is far from a huge advantage for them as Cude is still one of the best goaltenders in this draft.

They do have the advantage in coaching. But we do like having an assistant which is something that they do not. Carbonneau is strictly a defensive coach. He will help out the guys on their own side of the ice. Carlyle is another good coach who has never had a losing season as a coach in ANY LEAGUE. And hes been coaching for 9 years..

Overall its a great matchup and very close. We look forward to the series and say good luck to 70's lord.

 

[seventieslord]

Honestly CR, I think Cude is the 2nd best goalie in this draft after Lesueur. Good luck to you.

 

[Transplanted Caper]

Apologies guys, to make a long story short, I'm working for a market research firm that's waist deep in the federal election and I'm right in the middle of it. I don't have the time to do write-ups during the week, so I'm just going to post results rather than call on others to do write-ups at this point, not because a good job wouldn't be done, but the GM's deserve to know whether they won or not.


The Regina Capitals beat the Belleville Bulls in 7 Games


1. Percy Leseur
2. Tommy Smith
3. Josef Malacek

 

[seventieslord]

Congrats, Belleville, on a very tight series. I'm proud to have come out on top of this one. You had a good team.

 

[seventieslord]

I wonder who I am up against next... I'm thinking Peterborough but I could be wrong.