OPPF20202 1st Round - Richmond vs. Better Logos

[BenchBrawl]

RICHMOND RENEGADES

Coach - Punch Imlach

Doug Bentley - Frank Boucher - Gordie Howe
Esa Tikkanen- Peter Forsberg- Teemu Selanne
Ilya Kovalchuk - Doug Gilmour - Punch Broadbent
George Hay - Nick Backstrom - Joe Mullen

Scott Stevens - Doug Harvey
Victor Hedman - Alexei Kasatanov
Jim Schoenfeld - Brad McCrimmon

Frank Brimsek
Roberto Luongo
​

vs.​

in honour of our national day of remembrance, i introduce

the chicago better logos

captained by the great bryan trottier, of treaty 4 territory.

fred shero

bergeron trottier (c) bathgate
firsov yzerman (a) kucherov
anderson stewart tocchet
lemieux goring pavelski

langway (a) pilote
boucher pronger
ramsey cameron

roy
giguere

pp1
stewart yzerman kucherov
pilote bathgate

pp2
firsov trottier pavelski
proger cameron

pk1
trottier bergeron
langway pronger

pk2
goring anderson
ramsey pilote

pk spares
if a second faceoff ace is needed for PK2, yzerman (RHS), with firsov as the sixth forward and boucher as the extra guy on d
​

teams: blues / islanders / capitals / canadiens / ussr / blackhawks / rangers / red wings / lightnings / maroons / senators / bruins / oilers / devils / kings / maple leaves / sharks / sabres / mighty ducks / flyers​

@The Macho King , @vadim sharifijanov

Click to read more...

 

[The Macho King]

Some initial thoughts:

I don't like Bergeron on the wing. I feel that gives me a pretty sizable advantage on the top line. Trottier and Boucher are close (with probably a slight edge to Trottier), but on the wings the Renegades blow the Better Logos away. Howe >>>> Bathgate, and Bentley > Bergeron (as a winger). Whether he has succeeded in that role (in very limited international play on a stacked team) is irrelevant to me - the fact is you lose most of his bonuses by placing him there.

Second line I give a slight edge to him, based on the advantage of Firsov over Tikkanen, but I think it's a poorly constructed line. I don't think of Firsov as a mucker, so the line is pretty one note. Yzerman has an edge over Forsberg, but Selanne balances that out.

Third line I think it's the Renegades by a good bit. Gilmour is luxury casting. Broadbent is a good fit, and Kovalchuk is a good trigger man in this set up. Fourth lines probably a slight edge to the Better Logos.

For D - there's no better top pairing in the league than Harvey-Stevens. They'll play 30 minutes a night and the Logos are going to hate every minute of it.

Second pairing is definitely an edge to Better Logos. Pronger and Boucher is a very strong pairing, but I don't think it's going to blow my pair out.

Third pairing - I think a slight edge to me but these are basically specialist players rather than huge minute munchers. Both "do no harm" pairs ES.

Goaltending obviously goes to Logos with Roy, but Brimsek is good enough to steal some games himself.

Obviously biased, but I think the strength of my top line and top pairing is going to be too much to control. While Logos has some good two-way Cs and obviously Langway and Pronger are strong defenders, I don't think they have the checking to contain that line. Additionally, all four of my lines are capable of scoring at ES, so I think that depth can be a difference maker over 7 games when you need those bottom of the lineup players to have surprising performances.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

i'll look at this matchup later but for now

@The Macho King good luck brotha

 

[BenchBrawl]

Whoever wins this is facing me next round. I'll be following this one closely. Good luck gentlemen.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Whoever wins this is facing me next round. I'll be following this one closely. Good luck gentlemen.

So the bracket is set? They don’t get reseeded so IE faces the lowest seeded team to advance?

Doesn’t matter to me how it’s done, just asking bc I’ve seen it both ways before.

 

[BenchBrawl]

So the bracket is set? They don’t get reseeded so IE faces the lowest seeded team to advance?

Doesn’t matter to me how it’s done, just asking bc I’ve seen it both ways before.

Yes it is set, which is how I described it in the main thread, so I can't change it now. I had no reason to do it like this, just came out that way.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

Yes it is set, which is how I described it in the main thread, so I can't change it now. I had no reason to do it like this, just came out that way.

Sounds good. Like I said, either way is fine with me

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

ok so my team's strengths/emphases:

elite puck rusher on each d pair. pilote was the best offensive guy of his generation, boucher was considered the best stickhandler in the league in his time, and my read on cameron is that he was a lot like karlsson but with a little more physicality.

that strength is probably best against a forecheck heavy team, which the renegades aren't especially, but it also will challenge their excellent defensive depth at center.

up front, with the exception of bathgate and stewart (and with stewart i think we just don't know), these are all high iq players. all are highly capable of playing within a system, and this is the system: "Shero got the team to embrace the unglamorous parts of the game -- board work, team defense, puck support and puck discipline -- that was the crux of their success in five-on-five play."

yes that second line has not much grind to it, but it has a tonne of hockey iq and i see it as a soviet style line. yzerman famously picked larionov's brain for years, so he should have this. puck support, fluid east/west hockey, the beautiful gameTM. every guy is a triple threat: expert stickhandler, passer, and shooter. stylistically, that's actually my favourite of my lines, and the one i like most to have each guy get the most of the other others. all of that might meet its match in harvey/stevens, but then there's still the top line and line number three, both of which are anchored by hart/ross centers, plus another hart/ross guy on the wing in bathgate.

i'll say more on the matchup later, but at first glance i look at the renegades and i see gordie howe. i don't have that. and i see harvey/stevens, and that's a hell of a pairing. i'd throw my first and fourth lines at howe. bergeron is one of the greatest defensive forwards of all time (and yes i'll defend bergeron at LW later), and claude lemieux is a very difficult shadow who specializes in neutralizing big men: his resume shows cam neely, lindros, jagr, messier, and mario.

as for the harvey/stevens pair, you can only challenge them, no one is going to solve them. but i do like the idea of throwing that forechecking third line of death out at them from time to time, when the forward matchup is right (i.e., not against howe). even the stately new jersey scott stevens can only be run so much before he turns back into cam cam washington scott stevens and tries to fight everybody right?

and you can't underestimate georges boucher giving his little brother noogies.

also, the minorest of lineup changes: to save firsov from playing ES, PP, and a little PK, i'm going to switch him off with claude lemieux as the sixth PK forward.

@The Macho King you've got me considering me breaking up my second/third lines to even out the skill and brawn, but only a little.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

okay so puck possession. every guy on my team can pass the puck, the weakest is pavelski.

every d pair has a guy who can skate it out and at least one capable stretch passer, but langway and ramsey also didn't exactly handle the puck like a grenade. they had fine outlets.

here's a matchup that my team runs away with: faceoffs. gilmour was great, though at least statistically he was not on yzerman's level, and i'm assuming frank boucher great because he seems like a little things kind of player but a cursory google search reveals nothing. but forsberg and backstrom were/are not competitive faceoff guys.

meanwhile, trottier (LHS) is an all time faceoff taker. on his line is patrice bergeron (RHS), who has been one of the best in the NHL his entire career. he and my second line center, yzerman (RHS), are both in the top ten all time in faceoff percentage—obviously, that only counts from when they started keeping those stats, which afaik is the late '90s. nels stewart (LHS) is supposedly all time too, though i don't have a source. he's mentioned in the best faceoff guys thread (here) and being that he was a towering guy with great hands, it makes sense. and my fourth line has goring (LHS), another all time guy, and pavelski (RHS), who has been excellent his entire career, on his wing.

so as a game plan, even though i have speedy and abrasive forecheckers in my bottom six, and trottier on my top line, we're going to play a puck possession game. the puck will move quickly through the neutral zone, and my guys will start with the puck and keep it. the four lines will all attack (and defend) in different ways, but they won't dump and chase it except to make a point.

- - -

and as for bergeron on the wing, it's not like i put yzerman on the wing because he played some right wing in the 2002 olympics and a little bit as a hobbled old man in detroit. bergeron has consistently played there in international competition: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2016. small samples, but that's six small samples over more than a decade, all with the same result. and in five out of those six tournaments, he had the same center, his hockey soul mate, who is an extremely close stylistic match for my team's captain/number one center. on this team, he's not there to score goals. he has two art ross winners to do that. he's playing a support role and he has demonstrated all the necessary intangibles to perform that role excellently.

and i'm channeling the late c1958 here but there's a very good argument for bergeron having elite versatility.

Scott Gordon: You look at those rosters from the Olympics, there were definitely guys that had more points then Bergy, but who’s the top guy at the end of the game? Who’s killing the penalties when the game is on the line? He can do all of it. Any coach that has him as a player, they don’t realize exactly how much they’re getting until they have him and then you realize you have more than just one player.

Mike Babcock: The first time I had him was in ’04 at the Worlds. I had him in ’10 (at the Vancouver Olympics). I had him in ’14 (at the Sochi Olympics) and I had him in ’16 (at the World Cup of Hockey). Every time he can play with the best players, he can play any position. He can look after the best players defensively if he needs to. He can play on the power play. He can play on the penalty kill. He can play 20 minutes. He can play eight and says the same thing if you play him both. Good man.

i kind of think of bergeron as a hockey version of scottie pippen in that sense, so it's funny that the boston herald compared him to another hall of fame proto-positional slider, john havlicek.

When news spread of the death of Celtics great John Havlicek during the Bruins’ series opener Thursday night against the Columbus Blue Jackets, it occurred to me from my seat in the halo of the Garden that I was watching Hondo’s play-alike.

One Garden and two generations later, I find myself asking the same questions about Bruins center Patrice Bergeron as I asked about Havlicek from my seat on the floor of our den in Rochester, N.Y., watching with my father and brothers.

“How can he be over there already when he was just way back there?”

“Why hasn’t he collapsed of exhaustion yet? If I’m tried of watching him go, go, go, why does he look so fresh?”

“How unbelievably annoying must this guy be to play against?”

Havlicek, No. 17, used all 94 feet of parquet to disrupt opponents the way Bergeron, No. 37, uses all 200 feet of ice to gain the edge on his foes.

Hondo’s versatility might not stand out as much in today’s position-less NBA, but in his era, most players easily slid into a compartment as either a guard, forward or center. Havlicek was a guard/forward, whichever position the Celtics needed more at the moment.

Name something Bergeron doesn’t do well on a rink. Best defensive forward in the game, one of the greatest at winning draws of all-time, slick passer and scorer, strong in front of the net, a bumper on the power play, a skilled penalty killer. Name any aspect of the game and his presence makes teammates better. Same for Havlicek on the hardwood.

receipts:

‘The kind of guy you build franchises around’: Inside Patrice Bergeron’s first 1,000 games

Patrice Bergeron a modern-day John Havlicek – Boston Herald

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

i'm assuming frank boucher is great at faceoffs because he seems like a little things kind of player but a cursory google search reveals nothing

actually, this was a bit of a brain fart on my part. this whole time i was thinking about frank nighbor instead of frank boucher. i have no idea if boucher was good or bad at faceoffs, but my benefit of the doubt was reserved for nighbor, who has the reputation of a guy who you think would be great at faceoffs. boucher i just have no idea.


okay now the special teams matchups. i'm going to go from the renegades units from the assassination thread.

PP1:
Boucher - Howe - Selanne - Harvey - Forsberg

pk1
trottier bergeron
langway pronger​

i really like my PK1. as a PK pair, langway-pronger is almost as good as the practically flawless stevens-harvey. i assume forsberg is the forward on the point? did he play much point on the powerplay? i remember sakic there at times, but i don't remember forsberg there. i know he's still forsberg, but bergeron is an elite pickpocket and forsberg is the one we'll try to exploit. harvey would be considerably harder to pressure into coughing up the puck at the point, i'd imagine.

down low, my guys will have their hands full with howe, but i can't think of two guys better to take him on. two big, strong, brilliant octopuses with gigantic reaches. the open ice selanne usually looks for to get that one timer off will be hard to find.

even with howe and harvey, i like my unit here. their ridiculous both-handed faceoff prowess is a bonus.

PP2:
Gilmour - Kovalchuk - Bentley - Backstrom - Hedman

pk2
goring anderson
ramsey pilote​

assume backstrom is the second point guy here, not kovalchuk? goring was considered the best penalty killer int he league.* like goring, anderson was ridiculously fast and feisty as hell. hedman's good, but just in terms of handling the puck and directing traffic he's not like a zubov or a lidstrom, or a harvey, or for that matter kucherov on his own team. backstrom is another guy who i don't think has played a lot of point, but i'm open to being corrected. excellent passer, of course, and i see kovalchuk there to be his ovechkin. but i'd be really nervous with goring and anderson going at your point men like two psychotic riled up hornets.

nothing special to say about the two dmen. two very very good defensive defencemen. maybe i guess both have reputations as all time-level shot blockers?

i'd call this a win for my PK2. i don't see anyone on that PP2 at a real elite level historically, but goring is, and anderson was on a scary PK pair with messier in edmonton and is a good stylistic fit with goring. their speed and tenacity will be too much, i think, and generate chances the other way.

* sources:

He was that factor in the locker room that our team needed at that time, keeping guys loose, but serious when needed," Ken Morrow said. "Speaking from my scouting lenses, he did everything really well. That's invaluable to a coach. He was probably the best penalty killer in the NHL at that time. Power play, face-offs, and the energy he brought to every shift as well.

(morrow is talking about when goring first was traded to new york, An Isles Life: Butch Goring

Goring is the best penalty-killer In the league bar none. His rampaging skating style allows him to forecheck the opposition to the point of exhaustion.

The News, May 4, 1983, The News from Paterson, New Jersey on May 4, 1983 · 13

PK1: Boucher - Tikkanen - Harvey - Stevens

pp1
stewart yzerman kucherov
pilote bathgate​

i'm not sold on boucher as a PK1 guy, maybe i just don't know enough about his defensive prowess, but the other three guys are phenomenal of course. that said, while nobody on my team is gordie howe, there are three hart/ross guys on this unit, plus yzerman who would have peaked as a hart/ross winner in 1989 if not for mario/gretzky, and a guy who in his ten year prime led all defencemen in powerplay scoring five times, was second three times, and fourth the other two years.

fitwise, pilote's job was to load the canons for hull and mikita's crazy slapshots. andy bathgate was the second scariest slapshot from the point of the O6. stewart was the all time scoring leader and will fight stevens in front of the net until one of them dies. yzerman and kuch each have assist+/game seasons but also both have finished as high as second in goals so like everyone else on the unit you have to respect the shot even though they can also kill you with a pass.

also worth noting that this unit has three smythe or retro smythe winners and a fourth guy who just led the playoffs in scoring and had previously finished third, one single point behind the co-leaders. these guys are wizards and will get it done in crunch time.

i'd call this even, but if someone can tell me more about boucher's PK abilities i'm willing to concede a slight loss in this matchup.

PK2: Forsberg - Broadbent - Schoenfeld - McCrimmon

pp2
firsov trottier pavelski
pronger cameron​

i really like that schoenfeld-mccrimmon pair. but trottier's overqualified as the main guy of a second unit, and firsov might be too. in the grant scheme of things pavelski is weak, but on the PP i actually don't think he is. in his peak three offensive years, he was 2nd, 2nd, and 8th in powerplay goals and for a smaller guy he's really good at finding space in front of the net and has absolutely elite deflection skills. firsov is a fantastic RHS alt-QB from the left hash marks, where mario used to camp out. pronger's a big LHS from the point and cameron is the QB and apparently innovated the "curved shot," though i'm not sure exactly how whatever that was translates for us here. in any event, on top of being able to carry the puck at an all time level (auto-zone entries), he is a defenceman with a historically significant shot who finished top ten in goals four times.

i think trottier, cameron, and maybe also firsov are at a level that outmatch a strong but unspectacular PK. pronger is the weakest link but i think he still solidly belongs on a PP2.


and finally, i know everyone's team has lots of all time scorers and great playoff performers, but i do just want to stop and marvel at my team's clutchitude, especially in my bottom six. stewart is stewart, a guy who held the all time scoring record for half a decade. but then glenn anderson, one of the clutchest playoff scorers of all time, on his LW, and rick tocchet, who imo was the most noticeable player in the 1987 canada cup after gretzky and mario, on his right. two conn smythes on the fourth line, plus pavelski, who has finished first and second in playoff goals. and also worth noting, on that fourth line, there's a guy who was assigned to gretzky and beat him in 1983, and to his left is a guy who took mario to a game seven and messier to two game sevens, on top of the superstars he shadowed that he did beat en route to his four cups.

 

[The Macho King]

Maybe it's my modern sensibilities, but I don't really think of PPs as needing two Points anymore. I view them as more -

Forward below goal line/front of net
RHS on left Wing, Bumper guy, LHS on RW
Dman distributor.
​

That's an ideal more than a necessity. Some guys play better on their strong side and that's fine. I built my PP units with that in mind.

On Faceoffs and Frank Boucher generally - you're underrating his D by a lot. Hes not in the Clarke-Nighbor tier, but he is in the next tier below.

On faceoffs - faceoffs are simply overrated, but my guys are fine on that if not elite.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

@The Macho King i kind of don't really get your bottom six.

how does kovalchuk complement gilmour and broadbent on the defensive end, or in that line's non-scoring intangible contributions? don't you kind of lose a lot of the grindy/defensive advantage of those two guys if they have to cover for kovalchuk's goal sucking?

and the fourth line, i guess it feels to me like it's just kind of... there? backstrom and mullen i like individually as players, especially mullen. but imo neither guy is a line-defining player, both are fine but not dominating defensively, ditto offensively. is hay good enough that he can be the go-to guy on this line?

maybe i'm thinking too much about line identity here, but my third line will forecheck you into the end boards and leave a dent, and my fourth line will hound you until you give up the puck. what does that fourth line play like? can it dictate the style of play? can it force an opposing line to play a style of game that doesn't suit them?

 

[BenchBrawl]

Toughest series to vote for. Both participants brought it too; no one deserves to lose this one.

 

[Theokritos]

Voting result:

Richmond Renegades vs Chicago Better Logos 4-3 (several games went to OT)
1st star Gordie Howe, 2nd star Patrick Roy, 3rd star Bryan Trottier