The MLD 2020 Thread

[ResilientBeast]

I'm going to grab for my third line Jochen Hecht, LW/C

Why Hecht?
Over his "peak seasons" averaged
0.64 points per game playing 17:57 minutes
For his career, average 40 even strength points per 82 games.

According to overpass's fantastic sheet
Teams with Hecht were 10% better than average with him on the ice, and he was spending ~29% of each game at ES
Teams with Hecht were 4% better than average with him on the ice for the power play, and he was on the ice for ~28% of his teams PP time
Teams with Hecht were 9% better than average with him on the ice for the penalty kill, and he was on the ice for ~29% of his team's PK time
With Hecht on the ice the team has a GF/GA of 1.23, without him 1.06

Is a driver of success? No, but he's the kind of player good teams have. He can do a little bit of everything.

 

[ResilientBeast]

Maine Black Bears
1993 & 1999 NCAA champions

coach

Vladimir Ruzicka - Alexei Zhamnov - Mike Murphy (C)
Tomas Holmstrom - Art Chapman - T.J. Oshie
LW - Pierre Mondou - Eddie Shack
LW - C - RW

Lars Bjorn - Rick Ley (A)
Mattias Norstrom (A) - Torey Krug
D - D

Tom Paton
G
​

NOTES:
1. Ruzicka was 1st in Boston Bruins goals & points when he was on left wing, so the C/LWer will play there.

Pretty sure you're one of the people who criticized me for playing Nels Stewart at LW when he played 2 of his best 4 seasons at that position.

 

[VanIslander]

Pretty sure you're one of the people who criticized me for playing Nels Stewart at LW when he played 2 of his best 4 seasons at that position.

True.

Ruzicka was the 1986 and 1988 Golden Hockey Stick award winner as best Czechoslovakian player as a center, beat the Soviets for world championship gold in 1985 as a center and captained the Czech team in the epic 1998 Olympic upset of Canada and eventual gold as a center, so... his two years as a LW in the NHL, however great, is probably not enough.

Ruzicka will be front and center, as he should be.

 

[Johnny Engine]

I believe I have an outstanding pick, and it'll be Claude Larose

 

[tony d]

I go with lw randy Burridge.

 

[VanIslander]

One great thing about depth drafts is we don't just look at the last ATD list and pick guys from a small range. That's effortless and predictable.

In this draft there are so many ways of doing research, places to check out, lists to review, stats and historical events to consider. And the result is:

1. You learn more.

2. It is much more unpredictable.
Guys you thought would go early, don't.
Guys you thought would be available later, aren't.

It is like traveling rather than hanging out in the neighborhood.

 

[VanIslander]

Maine selects Mike Krushelnyski, the 6'2 200 lbs. left winger on Gretzky's line in the 1985 Stanley Cup championship season, scoring 13 playoff points including two game-winning goals. He had a career-high 43 goals, 88 points that year and an all-star game berth, third in goals among Oiler forwards. "Krusher" would help the team win two more cups and when Gretzky was told he would be traded to L.A., Wayne requested Mike be included in the trade.

Krushelnyski's first year as a King he scored a team-high 8 game-winning goals (4th in the NHL). His second year he scored a crucial 2OT playoff series-clinching goal against the Flames in Game 6, eliminating the cup winners who the year before had beaten L.A. on the way to the cup.

Krushelnyski began his career as a left winger on the Middleton-Pederson line in Boston. He led all NHL rookies in playoff scoring with 14 points, tied for second in Boston playoff goals as the squad pushed the dynasty Isles to six games in the conference finals.

At the tail end of his career, he went to Toronto and was immediately put at center, a position he had played way back in juniors, centering the Foligno line, and he put up the worst offensive numbers to date. The following season he was moved back to left wing and rebounded, scoring twice as many goals but still less than his early days, just 6th on the Leafs. However, that postseason he helped Toronto push his previous team L.A. to Game 7 of the conference finals, the 33 year old contributing 10 points in a secondary role on the third line. He played two injury-riddled seasons after that before retiring.

 

[ResilientBeast]

I'll take another character player for my bottom 6 and select Mike Grier, RW

According to overpass's sheet, Grier killed ~39% of penalties for teams 9% above average.

TOP 100 OILERS: MIKE GRIER (49)

“The scouts all wanted Mike but Glen didn’t know much about him,” recalled former head of scouting Kevin Prendergast. “I remember Glen saying ‘he weighs 265 pounds, he’ll never fit into a pair of pants.” I don’t know if Grier ever actually weighed that much because when he got here he bent the beams at about 230 pounds – opponents can thank their lucky stars for that because Grier hit like a runaway freight.
While Grier wasn’t particularly fleet of foot in terms of having great lateral movement, he could get there in a straight line and if he caught somebody in the trolley tracks, he simply ran them over and kept going. I’m trying to think of a better pure hitter than Grier and I’m hard-pressed to come up with a name. Mercy, he wrecked guys – no elbows, no stick, all body, and there damn sure was plenty of that.
Grier twice scored 20 goals in a season for the Oilers and the 44 points he amassed in 1998-99 was a career high. He was not without offensive ability. Grier’s calling card, though, was steaming up and down the right wing and making sure everybody knew he was there.

Top 10 Unsung Heroes: Mike Grier (5)

While I’m trying to keep from duplicating players in the series of lists that started with the Top 100 Oilers of all-time — Grier was No. 49 on that one — there’s just no way to keep him off this one. While players like Weight and Smyth would emerge as the leaders of the Oilers in the mid-1990s to 2000, the days when Edmonton seemed to run into the Dallas Stars every spring, it was also the lesser lights like Marchant and Grier who went about their business and helped to keep the payroll-strapped Oilers in contention against big budget outfits in the Western Conference.
Marchant, of course, had his moment in the spotlight with that breakaway goal in overtime of Game 7 against the Stars in the 1997 playoffs. Grier, meanwhile, never grabbed centre stage quite as dramatically. Up and down the wing he went, throwing that fire-hydrant body of his around — he was listed as six-foot-one and 224 pounds, which seemed about 20 pounds light to my eye — like a linebacker on skates. Grier scored 20 goals twice during his time with the Oilers, but was best known as a checker and penalty killer.
Well, that and the fact he had the pain threshold of a cadaver. As has been duly documented, Grier’s shoulder began making a habit of dislocating during the 2000-01 season. You’d hear him scream in pain out on the ice, struggle to the bench with his arm dangling like a spare part and then head down the tunnel with the medical crew. More times than not, he’d emerge during the same game with his shoulder popped back in and ready to go. He never made as big a deal of it as everybody else did.

 

[Claude The Fraud]

The Granby Prédateurs would like to welcome, from Woonsocket, Rhode Island, 1st pick of the 1995 draft, 1997 Calder trophy winner and 2004 Bill Masterton trophy winner, Bryan Berard.

 

[tabness]

I'll pick Rick Zombo and Jose Theodore

Zombo was the guy I had in mind to play with Zalapski. A fantastic and super underrated defensive defenseman, he got a little recognition after the Wings deep playoff runs in the late eighties and got some all star votes and started making those magazine lists and all that. Zombo was basically always properly positioned, he was the guy playing mistake free hockey in Detroit before Lidstrom. They say some defensemen play within their limits and have great success, but Zombo actually had better than average skating and finesse skills then he demonstrated, he just seemed happy to be the steady guy. His career somewhat unraveled after the incident with the ref, he didn't seem to play with the same intensity after that unfortunately.

Theodore was always a talented goalie who really had a great season in 2001-2002. I'll be happy to get Theodore play outside that year, but if he puts it all together, easy wins lol!

 

[Claude The Fraud]

The Granby Prédateurs are proud to select, from St. Boniface, Manitoba, the last player to wear the #9 in Detroit before Gordie Howe, Mud Bruneteau.

 

[ResilientBeast]

I'll make up the pick when I get home from work.

 

[VanIslander]

Maine selects Ron Wilson, the head coach of the 1996 World Cup winning American team. He would later coach USA to the gold medal final against Canada in the 2010 Olympics.

He was the first ever head coach of the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, leading them to their first playoffs in 1997, where they won their first playoff series, losing in the 2nd round to eventual cup-winning Detroit.

Wilson then went to Washington and immediately led them to the 1998 Stanley Cup Finals, where again it was Detroit that defeated a team of his.

Wilson's Caps won divisional titles in 2000 and 2001 but both postseasons they lost to the Penguins. So, Washington acquired Jagr but he and the team regressed in 2002.

So, Wilson goes to San Jose and in his first full year there he is a Jack Adams finalist as he leads the team to a divisional title, an impressive 104 points, and then to the conference finals, where an ex-Shark Kiprusoff backstops an upset by Calgary. The second year after the lockout, the Sharks had a 50-win, 107-point season and defeated Nashville for the second year in a row before falling to the eventual cup-winning Wings, making Wilson the first coach in league history to lose to an NHL team (Detroit) behind the bench of three different teams! The next year he again leads San Jose to a divisional title and a 108-point season, beating Calgary in the opening round before being upset in the second round.

Wilson then goes to Toronto, a woeful team which hadn't been to the playoffs the previous four years nor would under the three-plus years of Wilson. He retired at age 57, having coached 648 NHL wins, which is top 10 all time. He is the winningest American coach ever and has been inducted into the U.S. HHOF.

Wilson was a technological innovator, connecting his assistants via computer in Washington and via tablet in San Jose, integrating video, statistical analyses and strategic planning on the fly behind the bench.

A Where's Waldo moment. Spot head coach Wilson.

 

[tony d]

Going with defenseman Bob Murdoch.

 

[ResilientBeast]

Mike Knuble, RW

 

[Habsfan18]

I believe @Johnny Engine has another hour and a few minutes in his clock. I should be around most of the night. I had holidays owed to me from work so I’m just taking it easy this week. My son and wife are sleeping so I’ve just been doing some good ‘ol hockey research. So I’ll be here to make my pick shortly after, then @kruezer is up x2.

 

[Johnny Engine]

I'll make my pick in a second

 

[Johnny Engine]

I'll take Bill Brydge, who was known as a heavy open-ice hitter, and he has a short offensive peak at age 31. His measurements - 5'9" and 195 - don't look like a lot, but the adjustment system we use sometimes has him around average height and very stocky.

@Habsfan18 is up

 

[Habsfan18]

Cornwall will select a former captain of the Pittsburgh Penguins..the underrated, tenacious, two-way checker and strong penalty killer in C, Orest Kindrachuk who unfortunately had his career cut short by back injuries. He had 5 goals in the playoffs for the ‘74 Cup winning Flyers, good for a tie for second on the team.

Coach Fred Shero once said of the former Broad Street Bully: "He was the kind of player you wanted out there in the tough situations because he had both the brains and guts."

 

[overpass]

I'll take Bill Brydge, who was known as a heavy open-ice hitter, and he has a short offensive peak at age 31. His measurements - 5'9" and 195 - don't look like a lot, but the adjustment system we use sometimes has him around average height and very stocky.

@Habsfan18 is up

My favourite (only) Bill Brydge story, from C. Michael Hiam's Eddie Shore and that Old Time Hockey. Although Brydge couldn't have faced Cleghorn on the Canadiens as he didn't arrive in the NHL until Cleghorn played for the Bruins.

Earlier in the season, a promising young NHL player named Ace Bailey, new to the Toronto St. Pats, naively insulted (Sprague) Cleghorn just before the opening faceoff, and Cleghorn, without bothering to look, instinctively shot out a left hand that sent Bailey reeling to the ice. "Pop! His fist came from nowhere," Bailey remembered, "caught me right in the nose, and knocked me down. I struggled to get up. "Stay down you crazy bastard," Bill Brydge said, grabbing me. "Do you want to get killed?"

"Brydge spoke from experience. At one time, he had been Toronto's supposed antidote to Cleghorn, back when Cleghorn was still with the Canadiens. "Bill Brydge was gonna give us some muscle," Toronto's Conn Smythe said in 1971, "he was gonna be our bad man. And when Cleghorn came down, he did give it to him, the knee, the elbow, the stick. But Cleghorn paid no attention; he just waited. Then the time came and, my, he did straighten out Mr. Brydge. He just made a mess of him. Fifty stitches."

 

[kruezer]

I’ll take D Andy Greene and Coach Lou Vairo.

 

[Habsfan18]

Cornwall selects LW, Steve Konowalchuk.

Steve Konowalchuk was one of those rare elite role players that was impossible for any hockey fan not to admire.

Konowalchuk was equal parts of heart and intelligence. He was a courageous digger and mucker, working hard for every goal and every win, using every ounce energy on every shift. Yet his understanding of the game made him a brilliant player in his own right. He was a defensive genius, a regular on the PK especially when 2 men down.

He was an impact player, knowing when to change the pace of a game with an energy shift or a big hit. Simply put, he was a coach's dream - great character, great work ethic and a complete team player. His offensive game was anything but fancy and his totals never grand, but there was not a coach in the league who would not take Steve Konowalchuk exactly as he was.

 

[tony d]

Going with Head Coach Paul Maurice.

 

[VanIslander]

Maine selects 6'2 218 lbs. Paul MacLean, the three-time 40-goal scoring right winger who over a 9-year span had eight 30+ goal seasons with 140+ shots each year, yet with the 3rd best ever NHL career scoring percentage (just ahead of Mike Bossy). The top-line right winger also was six times 100+ PIMs over that stretch as Hawerchuk's physical and backchecking winger. "Big Mac" was a force also on the powerplay, three times top-10 in NHL PP goals, once 3rd. He scored 673 points in just 713 NHL games.

... a solid defensive player and, thanks to his size and balance, an above average grinder. It was often MacLean's job to retrieve pucks from the heavy traffic areas in the corners and the slot. He was a handful for defensemen to handle...

 

[Johnny Engine]

I thought about Kelly Kisio for the 4th line job on the ATD Cee Bees, and it seems he hasn't been picked yet since then.
I'll take him.
He's a tenacious little bugger with some leadership, but I primarily remember him for scoring a goal where he beat an entire team without moving his feet.