Sam Pollock Division Finals - New Jersey Swamp Devils (1) vs St. John's IceCaps (2)

[ImporterExporter]

NJ Swamp Devils (1)

Coach: Ken Hitchcock
Assistant/PP Coach: Bob Johnson

Vladimir Krutov - Sid Abel (C) - Guy Lafleur
Boris Mayorov (A) - Vyacheslav Starshinov - Bobby Bauer
Tony Leswick - Cooney Weiland - Mush March
Ab McDonald - Mike Ricci - Tim Kerr

Allan Stanley - Earl Seibert (A)
Vladimir Lutchenko - Flash Hollett
Vasili Pervukhin - Doug Young

George Hainsworth
Ben Bishop

PP1:
Tim Kerr
- Vladimir Krutov - Sid Abel - Guy Lafleur
Flash Hollett

PP2:
Boris Mayorov - Vyacheslav Starshinov - Bobby Bauer
Allan Stanley - Earl Seibert

PK1: Cooney Weiland - Tony Leswick - Allan Stanley - Earl Seibert
PK2: Viachelsav Starshinov - Mush Marsh - Vladimir Lutchenko - Doug Young
PK3: Vladimir Krutov - Sid Abel

Spares: Jack Evans (D), Steve Sullivan (F)

Estimated Ice Time

Forwards
Name	ES	PP	PK	Total
Vladimir Krutov	14	4	1	19
Sid Abel	14	4	1	19
Guy Lafleur	16	4*		20
Boris Mayorov	13	3		16
Vladimir Starshinov	13	3	2	18
Bobby Baeur	13	3		16
Tony Leswick	13		4	17
Conney Weiland	13		4	17
Mush March	13		2	15
Ab McDonald	6			6
Mike Ricci	6			6
Tim Kerr	4	4		8
Total	138	26*	14

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Defensemen	ES	PP	PK	Total
Allan Stanley	16	2	4	22
Earl Seibert	18	2	4	24
Vladimir Lutchenko	16		2	18
Flash Hollett	14	5		19
Vasili Pervukhin	13	1	1	15
Doug Young	13		3	16
Total	92	9	14

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

VS



St. John's IceCaps (2)


Coach: Alain Vigneault
Captain: Maurice Richard
Alternate: Serge Savard
Alternate: Dunc Munro

Dick Duff - Elmer Lach - Maurice "Rocket" Richard
Mats Naslund - Pete Mahovlich - Gordie Drillon
Don Marshall - Bobby Smith - Trevor Linden
Georges Mantha - Red Berenson - Johnny Gagnon
Daniel Briere, Paul Ronty

Serge Savard - Sylvio Mantha
Sergei Gonchar - Terry Harper
Dunc Munro - Carol Vadnais
Lyle Odelein

Tony Esposito
Andy Moog

Powerplay 1:
Gordie Drillon
Mats Naslund - Elmer Lach - Maurice Richard
Sergei Gonchar

Powerplay 2:
Pete Mahovlich
Johnny Gagnon - Bobby Smith
Serge Savard - Carol Vadnais

Penalty Kill 1:
Serge Savard - Don Marshall
Sylvio Mantha - Terry Harper

Penalty Kill 2:
Pete Mahovlich - Red Berenson
Dunc Munro - Carol Vadnais

PLAYER	ES	PP	PK	TOT
Richard	15	5	0	20
Lach	15	5	0	20
Duff	15	0	0	15
Drillon	12	5	0	17
Mahovlich	12	2	3	17
Naslund	12	5	0	17
Marshall	12	0	4	16
Smith	12	2	0	14
Linden	12	0	0	12
Berenson	7	0	3	10
Gagnon	7	2	0	9
Mantha	7	0	0	7
Savard	18	2	4	24
Mantha	18	0	4	22
Gonchar	15	5	0	20
Harper	15	0	4	19
Vadnais	13	2	3	18
Munro	13	0	3	16

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Click to read more...

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Here's to a good series, JE!

Containing Rocket Richard

I noticed I was in the same division early on as the Lach-Richard combo, which is a big reason I drafted Tony Leswick again this year.

Ken Hitchcock will probably have Tony Leswick shadow Rocket Richard, and will likely prioritize this matchup above any other.

I think that JE's top line is quite strong, but has one weakness - it relies very heavily on Rocket Richard to score goals. There are definitely worse goal scorers than Duff and Lach on top lines in this year's 40 team draft, but neither one is what I would consider a strong secondary option when it comes to finishing.

And while Rocket is arguably the best playoff goal scorer ever, there were times when he... let's just say he wasn't the most disciplined player.

Tony Leswick's real life success in getting under Rocket's skin

Leswick, named "The Biggest Pest in Hockey" by MacLean's magazine in 1954-55 (an article favorably reference by the great sportswriter Dink Caroll), had a lot of real life success against Rocket Richard.

I'm just copying these portions from my Leswick bio:

Perhaps his favorite target was Montreal's fiery Rocket Richard.

Leswick knew how to get under Richard's skin. Richard, who had a short fuse to start with, would often blow up at Leswick and assaulted him. Often Leswick would take Richard's shot and write it off as "taking one for the team." Richard would be banished to the penalty box while the Rangers would go on the powerplay. Other times Leswick was more than willing to answer Richard's battle cry, and the two would brawl it out. Both players were banished to the box, which of course would have to be a small victory for the Rangers.

Leswick's favourite target was Maurice Richard. Leswick would be all over the Rocket for an entire game, mixing a shower of insults with a flurry of butt-ends and slashes. Leswick was especially skilled at goading his targets into penalties. Referee Bill Chadwick was once quoted as saying that Leswick "could bring out the worst in a saint!"

Once Bodychecked Maurice Richard so hard that the Montreal Canadiens forward brought down the protective shield above the boards.

Leswick's overall game is actually fairly respectable for an ATD checker

Obviously, the best parts of Leswick's game are his defense (good enough that Ultimate Hockey writers felt fit to give him a Retro Selke) and agitation, but his overall game is respectable enough that I think he can chip in some goals on the counterattack. Before Detroit traded for Leswick (supposedly so Howe wouldn't have to play against him anymore), and turned him into a checking line player for their dynasty, he was a first line player on the hapless Rangers. These are his accomplishments for the Rangers:

• Second Team All-Star (1950)
• 4 straight NHL All-Star game on merit (1947, 1948, 1949, 1950). This was at a time when the All-Star game pitted the previous season's Cup winners against the best of the rest.
• Points: 17th(1948), 17th(1950), 19th(1947)
• Goals: 6th(1947), 9th(1948), 17th(1950)
• Assists: 16th(1950)
• Points on his team (in a 6-team era): 1st (1947), 1stT (1950), 3rd (1948), 5th (1946), 5th (1949)

Then he was traded to Detroit, where he won 3 Cups as a defensive specialist, who chipped in a few key goals in the playoffs.

True, the Rangers were the worst team in the league when Leswick led them in scoring twice, but leading the worst team in a 6-team league in scoring twice is more impressive than doing it in a 30 team league.

I'm obviously not counting on Leswick to lead the offense or anything; just pointing out that giving him a bit of extra ice time to counter Rocket Richard would not completely screw NJ's offense like it might with some checkers.

Summary: St. John's has a good first line, but they rely fairly heavily on Rocket Richard to score goals. Between Tony Leswick at LW and Allan Stanley at LD, I think that NJ has the horses to contain the damage that Richard can do.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

St John's 2nd line

I mentioned this in lineup assassinations; I believe St. John's 2nd line is the biggest weakness on an otherwise strong team.

Pete Mahovlich's overall offensive numbers are driven by 2 outlier seasons that were almost certainly the product of centering Shutt/Lafleur for those exact 2 seasons

No advanced stats or VsX needed though they would say the same thing; just look at his raw stats:
Pete Mahovlich Stats | Hockey-Reference.com

Two consecutive seasons when he broke 100 points; never broke 70 points or was a PPG player in any other season. This in the watered down 1970s when being a PPG player should be the barest of minimums that should be expected for an ATD scoring line center.

Here's an article supporting the easy assumption those were the 2 seasons Mahovlich centered Steve Shutt and more importantly Guy Lafleur:

Hockey lines, remember, consist of three men, and it would be all the more inspirational to report that Lafleur and Shutt could not be flying so high without the specific and indispensable help of Peter Mahovlich, the 30-year-old, 6'5", 215-pound center who successfully played on their line much of the past two seasons. After all, the defending Stanley Cup champion Canadiens are far ahead again in the Norris Division, and practically everything else about them—Goalie Ken Dryden, the defense corps of Larry Robinson, Guy Lapointe & Company, team depth—is the best in hockey. So wouldn't it be nice to be able to flatly call the Lafleur-Shutt-Mahovlich line the best in hockey, too?

But such a yearning runs afoul of Montreal Coach Scotty Bowman, who juggles his lines, well, left, right and center. Bowman directs the Canadiens while sucking ice cubes that he fishes from a bucket beneath the bench, and it was while refreshing himself in this fashion seven weeks ago that he decided to try somebody else at center with Lafleur and Shutt. The Canadiens were winning and Lafleur and Shutt were scoring in bunches, but while their line was on ice, too many opposition goals were being scored. Worse. Mahovlich, normally a pretty fair goal-getter himself, was having trouble finding the net. Bowman sounded like a cattleman worrying about an outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease. "What if Shutt or Lafleur also goes bad?" he fretted. "I've got to get Peter going." He then decided to replace Mahovlich on the line with another seasoned center, clever little Jacques Lemaire.

Operating between Lafleur and Shutt, Lemaire has supplied some back-checking and has joined his new linemates in the goal-scoring fun. And the Canadiens are still winning.

https://vault.si.com/vault/1977/02/07/on-the-whole-its-the-donut-line

This is one of those rare cases when a player's statistical peak can be very easily tied to a discrete period of time with significantly better linemates. (Or one significantly better linemate if you believe like I do that Lafleur was the primary driver of the offense).

I mean, bonus to Mahovlich that he was able to keep up with Shutt/Lafleur for the 2 seasons he was centering them, but I think it's pretty clear that he is not the guy you want driving the play on an ATD scoring line.

Gordie Drillon was an amazing finisher, but he relied largely on his center (Syl Apps) to drive the line

Every standard profile of Drillon talks about how he was only useful in the offensive zone. An example:

Drillon’s legendary scoring punch was paired with a defensive disinterest during a Leafs era that preached defence first. On opening night at Maple Leaf Gardens one season, Drillon skated past Broda and tapped him on the pads during warm-ups. “See ya in the spring,” Broda called after him.

Greatest Maple Leafs: No. 26 Gordie Drillon - Sportsnet.ca

I have read elsewhere (but can't find the source; the search function on hfboards isn't as good as it used to be) that the main reason Hap Day tolerated Drillon was because he had great chemistry with Apps.

Apps was one of the fastest skaters and reads like the best puck possession center of his era. Here are a few quotes by Dick Irvin (who coached the Apps/Drillon duo for a few years) describing their play:

Apps used to hit the defense at top speed and Drillon would come behind and pick up his garbage. Apps used to get sore when I told him that Drillon profited from his mistakes.

The Montreal Gazette - Google News Archive Search

Apps was a great broker, field runner. He could carry the puck, but he wasn't a great scorer. Gordie Drillion led the league in scoring twice just by cashing in on Apps mistakes once he hit the defense. The fellow who could get the big goal on me for the Leafs was Charlie Conacher.

The Montreal Gazette - Google News Archive Search

Mats Naslund

Mats Naslund is okay as a well-rounded 3rd wheel on a scoring line; I think his totals were suppressed somewhat by playing for a defense-first Montreal team in an era when every other good team was playing run-and-gun. Still, when he fails to make the 65% threshold to appear on Hockey Outsider's VsX tables, he's clearly not someone who is going to drive an ATD scoring line, either.

Conclusion

St. John's 2nd line contains a really good goal scorer in Drillon, and two "third wheel" type players. However, Drillon's style relied largely on his linemate(s) - in real life mostly Syl Apps - to drive the play into the offensive zone - and I really don't see the Naslund-Mahovlich combo being all that good at it here. I don't think Drillon is going to get the puck in scoring position as often as needed for him to be a maximum effectiveness.

 

[Johnny Engine]

Apologies that I couldn't get to this this week. Good luck in the voting.