Nitzy's Hockey Den Canadiens All-Time Teams; Pre and Post 1960

Earlier in the week, I created a Maple Leafs All-Time team that was split from pre and post 1960. A team with over 100 years of history really should be broken up into two squads. Obviously, I would have to do the same thing with the Montreal Canadiens. So here we go. First, the original overall squad as picked by TSN.

Now, my split squads with the 1959/60 season being the dividing point.
A few things. As I did with the Maple Leafs split teams, I removed the caveat of requiring a current-day player seeing as the pre-1960 team would not have one. This allows room to rightfully place Patrick Roy on the post-1960 team, sorry Carey Price. The Canadiens are perhaps weakest at LW over the last 60 years, Tomas Plekanec grabs a spot on the strength of his 15 fairly productive seasons. His 984 games played for the Habs are the 4th most since 1960, just behind Andrei Markov. Markov played all of his 990 career games for Montreal and was a productive defenceman producing 572 points. Saku Koivu gets the nod as Foundational Player for the post-1960 team.
The pre-1960 team is led on defence by Doug Harvey and five somewhat nondescript defencemen. The truth is the other five guys actually collected 10 total All-Star selections AND a Norris Trophy (for Tom Johnson). Even Glen Harmon was All-Star twice in the 40's for the Canadiens. Beliveau makes both the pre and post 1960 All-Time teams (like Horton and Armstrong for Toronto) as his career was split fairly evenly at that point. The relative weakness on the pre-1960 squad is their RWs. After The Rocket and Boom Boom there's a fair drop-off. Hall of Famer, Didier Pitre was an original Canadien and played the first six years of the franchise's existence scoring 64 goals in 127 games. Johnny Gagnon played the entire 1930's for the Habs producing 254 points in 406 games. As for the so-called "checking line", I may have stretched a little by using Newsy Lalonde at Centre. Lalonde was known more as a point-producer having topped the NHL in points in two of the first four years of the league's existence. However, I figure he'll do fine job checking between Olmstead and Gagnon.
To finish, I don't see how you can go wrong having Georges Vezina as the Foundational Player of the pre-1960 team.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ron Hextall and the stolen Conn Smythe Trophy

Image
Ron Hextall did not deserve the Conn Smythe Trophy in 1987....there, I said it. I recently caught game seven of the '87 finals on ESPN Classic, where the Oilers beat the Flyers 3-1. Hextall was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy to the disdain and boos of the Northlands Coliseum. Hextall was (and remains) the fourth player to win the trophy in a losing cause. Even as a teenager following these playoffs as they happened, I thought this was an injustice. Upon further inspection, I believe he only won because he was a rookie, and was the "sexy" pick as opposed to the proper pick. When looking at his numbers, it's hard to figure why he won. Hextall finished with 15 wins, 11 losses and a GAA of 2.77. Oilers, Grant Fuhr went 14 and 5 with an average of 2.46. I realize that stats cannot tell the whole story, but even if we dig further the award doesn't seem justified. His .908 Save Pct was the same as Fuhr's and tied for third behind Ken Wregget and Kelly Hrudey. Also,...
Read more

WHA Ottawa Civics, The Two Week Franchise

Image
Tom Earl, Daryl Maggs, Mark Lomenda, Gary MacGregor, Garry Swain "Please let the fans make up their own minds," Henry Feller told a press gathering. "Let them decide if they want pro hockey here. We have to average 7,000 or 8,000 in the remaining 19 home games for a break-even point." Feller was a director of the Founders Club who had interest in buying the WHA's Denver Spurs club. Ivan Mullinex, owner of the Spurs had brought his team to Ottawa in an attempt to drum up interest and save his investment. The date was January 2, 1976 and Mullinex was in debt to a Denver bank to the tune of $1 million dollars. This same day, the newly christened Civics lost their first game under the new moniker by a score of 2-1 at Cincinnati. Star of the team, Ralph Backstrom said after the game, "Our first official notice of the move hit us when we entered the Cincinnati rink and the names on the big scoreboard read: Stingers and Civics. Until that moment we were un...
Read more

Team Canada 1972, What Might have Been

Image
Guy Lafleur, if he had played in the 72 Summit Series "No way. Can you imagine what our fans would say if we allowed Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito to play for Canada in that series and either...suffered an injury that might prevent them from playing with us for a year or more?" This was the concern of Weston Adams Jr, president of the Boston Bruins as quoted on April 20, 1972. After being speculated and discussed since February 1972 at the Olympics in Sapporo Japan, the series was set to go. Early on however, controversy stirred as to who exactly would be representing Canada. Bruins GM, Milt Schmidt agreed with his boss saying, "My only interest would be to see the Russians play the Bruins for the world championship...or whatever team wins the Stanley Cup." In the Vancouver Sun a few days later, the legendary Jim Coleman responds to the American naysayers suggesting that Team Canada should be made up strictly of players from Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal ...
Read more