Wasn't really expecting to even be in a playoff series lol
I'll make a few general comments on team build and matchups and after that spend some time on several of my players, with special attention to LaFontaine. This will be a "defensive" post obviously.
I generally like your team build despite my usual hesitations with cross era and cross cultural chemistry. I think you did a good job bringing enough other Soviets on the team to try and get the best out of the very gifted Krutov (let me belatedly call this out as another example of the best/smartest strategic picks of the draft), and though I'd probably play him with Starshinov, the first line you built makes a lot of sense makeup wise.
I'm in agreement with you regarding Hitchcock and his tactical coaching. Although Quinn's coaching style is sometimes made into an oversimplified caricature, it's fair to say that he's less likely to tinker with his line combos and react to the other coach (which is sometimes a bad thing but sometimes necessary), especially with a team like the Skates where the lines sort of make themselves.
Another thing is that Hitchcock runs a pretty tight ship in terms of discipline which combined with your personnel probably means the Skates lethal powerplay won't get as many chances as I'd like them too.
I do think the strength of your wingers on your first line will be a tough matchup for any single one of my lines (as constructed) but I do like the Skates offensive depth to make it up.
I would like to point out that the guys seeing the most even strength ice time will likely be Zetterberg and Datsyuk (and Larmer after them) though, given that they are the third options on the powerplay and not the main options on the penalty kill, which I believe will certainly help matchup wise.
Though perhaps Hitchcock will keep them away more often than not when they're on the road, I really like my shadow line's build against your top line. Burr is perfect to handle Krutov's power and Meagher's specialty is superstar's superstars like Lafleur. Obviously they aren't going to score on the counterattack in any significant degree, but a little bit of frustration goes a long way.
Stevens and Andreychuk are certainly not ideal left wings in terms of skating especially defensively. Stevens was pretty good as a powerful straight line skater but his wider turning radius and general defensive effort level does not make him the ideal backchecker by any stretch. Andreychuk is Andreychuk lol. You having Kerr play sheltered minutes at even strength and just do his thing on the powerplay would probably be the ideal usage of Andreychuk as well (there's always Nilsson or Chouinard), I just liked to be able actually recreate the line. Also, as I mentioned during the draft I just generally worry about issues with having players of this pedigree play depth roles. On the flip side, offensively these are big and strong guys who love to go to the net and have great hands when at it. It will not be fun for any blue line to deal with them. Ciccarelli does the same thing even though he's smaller. Even Tinordi likes to crash the net. With the mix of finesse players handling the puck alongside them, it's not a fun matchup when the opponent is on the defensive.
I do think you're selling Larmer short defensively. Larmer hit the offensive heights he did because he happened to have an amazing shot and the great sense to be in the right place while playing with superstar centers, but his real value is what he brings defensively. He allows Savard to play to his strengths, and though Savard deserves lots of the credit of being a finesse player that actually (paradoxically) improved his game by avoiding contact, the tactical issues that could arise with that approach were masked well by having Larmer ride shotgun.
MacInnis wasn't the best skater no (he was called "chopper" though he worked at it), though as he aged he became very good positionally where I don't think it was much of a concern. More of a concern to me was him dealing with the physical game which is why I got Tinordi at his side (Murray • MacInnis seems like a perfect match but Murray was just too small for me to try it defensively).
I definitely don't think Lafleur will torch Tinordi though as it's some complete mismatch (it's Lafleur so of course he'll burn anyone he plays against to some degree). Tinordi was excellent defensively (after Pronger probably my best defensive defenseman) and as I mentioned when I drafted him, was quite a good skater especially for his size. That with his general positioning and reach actually makes him difficult to get around.
On Duchesne, first of all in general I think offensive defensemen like him have too much of a stigma against them. Obviously, I didn't draft him for his defense and paired him with my best defensive defenseman, but I will call out that Duchesne's issues weren't at all a result of getting beat cleanly, he was way too good of a skater for that, and played one on one situations brilliantly. His issues were getting caught up the ice trying to do too much offensively first and foremost and dealing with powerful forwards who'd play the body on him. I think Pronger mitigates both those aspects to a great extent (not to mention my forwards love carrying the puck anyway so Duchesne simply will get to do it less and get himself in trouble less).
Svehla did deal with quicker forwards by simply clutching and grabbing, so I guess it depends how the game is called. I'm more than confident in his general defensive awareness and positioning though. His partner Murray is a great skating partner who generally played conservatively at even strength anyway, using his offensive talent mainly on the powerplay.
Last but not least, Pronger and MacInnis were both noted for being excellent at handling two on ones (and so was Luongo). So even if Duchesne gets caught up the ice or Tinordi falls down and has a freak injury or something, I feel I got the right personnel to minimize the damage in those situations.
LaFontaine
Fundamentally, I just hold LaFontaine in a far higher esteem than you (and probably most others here). He doesn't seem to get the credit he deserves. As I said when I drafted him, he's the best player on my team and I'd take him over Forsberg. I know you consider that crazy, but I'm pretty happy with the opinion (goal scoring centers are the biggest gamebreaking impact players you can get and LaFontaine's goal scoring trump Forsberg physical and puck protection advantages). He belongs there with all of those guys with shorter careers due to injury.
If you're looking for opinions other than mine, contemporaneous at his prime, there's that too, even if the awards voting doesn't reflect it (aside from the fact that I straight up prefer to watch the player and make my own opinion, I feel the draft section seems to over value the awards voting results in their representativeness of contemporaneous opinion itself).
As the excerpts I posted in the draft thread from LaFontaine's (and Gretzky's) entry in the Hockey Scouting Report 1990-91 attested to, LaFontaine was considered by them to be one of the best players of the late eighties, probably the deepest period for top end players, right there with Lemieux, Gretzky, Yzerman, Messier, Savard, Bourque, Coffey, among others.
The Hockey News 1993 Yearbook had a feature on LaFontaine as the second best player to Lemieux before the actual 1992-1993 season where he did what he did.
When Neil Smith discussed Lindros and his physical aspect, the dominant superstars he mentioned were Gretzky, Lemieux, Yzerman, and LaFontaine. (
ERIC THE BAD : The Bruising Flyer Rookie Rocks Hockey With Raw Talent, Bad Manners and Frank Pleasure in the Violence of the Sport)
I'm not sure why LaFontaine's defensive play is being singled out for criticism here. Defensive play is definitely the area that I think scouting video of sorts would be very welcome to somewhat open up the analysis in the draft. It's just very time consuming to do, but should I participate again in the future, I'll definitely try to do this, and I'll start with LaFontaine.
From my watching of him in his prime, he does everything pretty well for a superstar. He backchecks hard and he's definitely an all time skater so he's quite effective doing so. He has great awareness and anticipation without the puck. His positioning is generally good (he's a superstar scoring center that likes to play down low so obviously he's simply not able to be in position every time and he'll break the zone early when potential opportunities arise but you can say that about pretty much every great goal scoring center). He'll play and sacrifice the body at the right time (obviously he didn't have the size to be effective as much as he'd hope, but he definitely had the right idea). The biggest defensive issue with him was pretty much when he was on the Islanders in the late eighties, as he simply over carried the puck at times which obviously leads to turnovers no matter how skilled the player is, but how can you blame him with the help he had? He was actually making the highest percentage play by not passing or dumping it in many times. Obviously it wasn't any sort of fundamental issue with him as seen by when he went to the Sabres and had help.
His profile on the NHL 100 Greatest Players specifically has David Poille and Jiggs McDonald discuss his defensive play. Mostly, I love Poille saying he'd be a number one center on any team today. (
Pat LaFontaine: 100 Greatest NHL Players)
The ranking of LaFontaine in the Hockey Digest Yearbook 93-94 that I also posted in the draft thread was second only to Lemieux among centers. He was rated a "9" on defense (the only higher ranked "10s" among the 25 centers they ranked were Lemieux, Roenick, Yzerman, Gilmour, and Fedorov).
LaFontaine's stats simply do not do him justice, as he only had a brief period of his prime where he actually was not in a disadvantaged position (and in that period he was basically the best scorer in the game after Lemieux). With the Islanders before, he seems to have the least help among the notable players I ran the
points together numbers on, and same story in Buffalo after Mogilny was dealt. Then there's the injuries, in terms of straight up missing time, just not even playing at hundred percent when not missing time, and the continuous issues of adjusting after missing so much time over and over.
To briefly touch on Mogilny, I understand where you're coming from as a New Jersey fan as Mogilny obviously didn't play his most inspired hockey there, but this guy really is one of the best wingers of his era when it comes to defensive sense. He just needs to actually realize his potential, and as I have tried to provide a context for that, having both LaFontaine as his center and Quinn as his coach, I think Mogilny should be judged more on his highs than his lows on the Skates.
