Bio updates:
Earl Seibert: kind of a "blah" bio to do. Unfortunately, too much of the information that exists on him is secondary sources. And he's from that particularly dark part of history (non-Habs, non-Leafs, predates The Hockey News) so you get the sense some sources copy from eachother. With that in mind, I try not to be repetitive. I combined a couple of old bios to start and added from a bunch of my books. This still left me unsatisfied. It's not that the info is sparse, it's actually pretty heavy, and the 11 all-star teams would prove that he was a ****ing great player even if we had no info at all. It's not even that we don't know why he was great. For the most part, we do. But I feel like I never brought the game of Earl Seibert to life. Read Tom Johnson's bio if you don't know what I mean. With the help of The Hockey News, Tom Johnson's game is very much alive.
Serge Savard: The start of a recurring theme with guys on my team - journalists openly wondering how/why a player hasn't received more recognition. With Savard it is pretty clear why. He was the "#1C" defenseman on the Habs roster for an entire decade. He was a real "meat and potatoes" kind of player but it was filet mignon and, I dunno, some kind of rare potatoes you only find foraging in the forest. I used to read in the HOH section when I was new there, that Savard had a case as the best defensive defenseman of all-time. I'm not seeing it, though he's very high on the list. Just not enough superlatives in there. I probably should have known by now, but didn't, that he actually killed penalties as a forward and did so for multiple Hab coaches over 13 years. Not only that, but his career PK stats are arguably the best of all-time considering sample size. I changed up my PK units after doing this bio.
Doug Gilmour. Gilmour was my 2nd favourite player growing up, and became me favourite as I matured and put into perspective just what he meant to the team and to hockey. Was it repetitive typing out a hundred times from a hundred sources how awesome Doug Gilmour was defensively, how tough he was, how great on faceoffs, how much stamina he had, how inspirational he was to his teammates? Yeah, a little. And I'd do it all over again. A few times writing this bio I felt my eyes get a little moist. Those playoff runs in 1993 and 1994 have always been special to me, and Gilmour was THE REASON they happened, and it's not an exaggeration to say it. Reading these articles and reports really brought me back to being a child again, made me remember what it was like to look up to someone like that. To have a hero. To make an idol of a mortal man. You just don't do that when you're 35. My biggest takeaways from this bio were that he really was excellent defensively right from the start, and he never stopped being a highly elite NHL player between 1987 and 1992. He was always one of the best two-way players in the league during that time but didn't post eye-popping numbers. Another example of a player who was said by many to have not received his proper due.
Evgeni Malkin. Kinda what-you-see-is-what-you-get. He's really the total offensive skills package and like doing a Lafleur bio, that has the tendency to get a little boring, so maybe it's a blessing in disguise that he's only got a decade worth of scouting reports to draw from. Biggest takeaway from this was the reminder of how much injuries have dogged him. A healthy Malkin is a top-5 scorer five times. And it's happening again this year, just like it happened in 2014 and 2016...
Tom Johnson. You want to see a guy's game come to life, read this bio. You can close your eyes and picture him playing. Thank goodness for The Hockey News. Johnson can't be judged solely on the basis of all-star/norris voting. His records are great, don't get me wrong, but he was better than those records. The word "overshadowed", "underrated" and "underappreciated" come up again and again. Playing on the same team as Doug Harvey helped him win cups, but sure didn't do his reputation as a great player any favours. Maybe it's premature to conclude this without doing a Harvey bio equally as thorough, but I wonder if Johnson was the better defensive defenseman? It's sacrilege, I know, and I've seen Harvey's puck possession game myself and that in itself is a defensive skill. But the language used around Johnson often hints as much. Four big takeaways when doing this bio: 1) Johnson's skating. He could barely skate before getting to the NHL, worked very hard at it, and then was often called a good skater, even "swift" or "fast". But later on in his career those sorts of descriptions never showed up anymore. 2) He was never paired with Harvey. He always anchored the 2nd pairing, playing nearly half the game. 3) he shot left but most definitely played the right side. 4) Harvey may have been the #1 defenseman, but Johnson was the #1 penalty killer. Anecdotes confirm this, and then also consider that Johnson put up 7 SHP during their time together in Montreal, while the obviously much more skilled Harvey posted 3 himself. In Savard and Johnson, I have the two anchors of the PK units of the most dominant dynasties of all-time.
Keith Tkachuk. Not a lot in this bio that I didn't already know, as I remember even his rookie season very well. He quickly developed a reputation as a heart and soul leader but soon lost that reputation thanks to contract holdouts, a cocky, me-first attitude, the Nagano incident, and the inability to take his team past the first round (it's odd that anyone expected him to do that with that team, though!). Then in St. Louis he redeemed himself as an "old pro" kind of guy who chugged along at a point per game for more years than you'd expect (and more than you may remember). When you think of a power forward from your youth, you think of big hits, fights, and blasting in goals, but the bio makes it clear that he had plenty of finesse skills, primarily excellent speed really soft hands. Based on his numbers, he's the best offensive power forward winger of the past 35 years after Iginla. This includes Ciccarelli, LeClair, Neely, and yes, even Shanahan. He has warts but despite them, he's very underrated.
Helmuts Balderis. I was only able to add a few things to this and consolidate what was already out there. A little Malkin-like in what-you-see-is-what-you-get, but we are pretty sure he was offense only so it's not like we're missing out on gems aside from more about his sublime skills.
Babe Pratt. Boy, do I wish Pratt's career started and ended a decade later than it did. THN really only picks up on his career when he's in the minors. It is pretty clear that he's not in the minors based on his merits as a player - he was the easy choice for MVP his first two seasons there, and made it clear that he thought the league was 90% as good as the NHL. Finding more information about his skills was tough though. His off-ice antics and his personality overshadowed him as an actual player. I think my original assessment of Pratt as somewhat of a "toolsy" player still makes the most sense - huge, swift skater, outstanding offensively, physical. Even called good defensively by a number of sources, yet was overshadowed by the Seiberts and Clappers of the time in all-star voting. A great Dink Carroll column made it clear how important he was defensively in 1944 when he won the Hart. He's still a bit of an enigma, but I did my best.
Herbie Lewis. This was made by taking all the stuff about Lewis that had been posted here before, consolidating it and adding tidbits from books I own. Unfortunately, he is from that dark age (non-Habs, non-Leafs, predates The Hockey News) and even books that i own specifically about the Wings are poor for any original info. It started to get repetitive, much like the Seibert bio. You may recall I hoped to find he was a gritty, physical player. maybe he was, but I have no way of knowing. I do know he was excellent defensively, one of the very best of his era, and I'd have even had him on the PK until the serge savard revelation showed me I could use 5 defensemen on two PK units. Really a shame that he remains a mystery.
Joe Hall. I just took what BenchBrawl had done last year and added about 6 quotes from books I own. Nothing was particularly illuminating, at least not like what he found last year. I also dressed it up with a bit of a stats package at the top, to the extent that one can really be done for a player from this era.
Johnny Gottselig. Much like Lewis, this was just me taking things that were already out there, and putting them together. At least in this case there were a few nice tidbits to add from a few sources. Really, all we know about Gottselig is he was an outstanding stickhandler, the best of his time, and this made him a highly valuable penalty killer. We also have his offensive numbers, of course, which are already embarrassingly good for a 3rd liner in this draft even before you consider he was almost certainly disadvantaged by Chicago's PP usage compared to his contemporaries. I included a bunch of overpass blurbs where he speaks in general terms about the extensive research he did on Gottselig.
Mike Babcock. Basically dozens of online sources from throughout his career, trimmed for easier digestion. Yet another case of an underappreciated guy (by Jack Adams award voting, that is). Tried to cover every part of his career, stick to stuff that wasn't "fluffy", focused on what kind of coach he was, what his players and high up hockey people think, his preferred strategies and values.
Phil Goyette. This may be my greatest contribution this year, just based on the volume of information added compared to what little was known, or at least what little had been documented here. Was Phil Goyette deployed as a defensive player in Montreal? Yes. Was he very good at it? Absolutely yes. He was very much another Ralph Backstrom, a guy who gave the Habs embarrassing depth, who gave up personal accolades and instead played a role to be a part of a highly dominant team. When he went to the Rangers and Blues, he was finishing top-10 in scoring right to the age of 36, and right to the end you still see things about his defensive play, although his defensive resume really comes from the Montreal years; without them we wouldn't see him as being any greater than, say, Dale hawerchuk defensively. I pretty much had to find this info on Goyette to justify drafting him where I did and making him the centerpiece of a two-way line, otherwise a non-physical (notice I didn't say soft) offense-only center with his numbers wouldn't be my cup of tea there. A couple side notes - I never realized he was lured to New York to replace the injured Ratelle in 1972 for the team that got to the finals. And, when Ted Green speared him, that sparked the blood feud between the Rangers and Bruins that lasted many years. Green says it was an accident, and I for one believe him. Goyette was very respected and no one wanted to goon him up.
you didn't really think I'd leave the team names in there, did you?
