EHM The Blue Line

A discussion thread about former NHL Seasons & Players.

Here's the place where you can ask questions/opinions. Or just state your opinion and see how others react.

Everyone just keeps talking about the current season constantly, so I just thought this thread would be good to have.

There's a lot more to talk here than the current season. We can choose about 100 of years of hockey history here.




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I'll start a question what was your all time NHL team? I can only remember from the 90's forward so I'll start with these:

Detroit Red Wings (2001-2002)

Sergei Fedorov
Dominik Hasek
Brett Hull
Nicklas Lidström
Luc Robitaille
Brendan Shanahan
Igor Larionov
Chris Chelios
Pavel Datsyuk (young guy then)

Colorado Avalanche (2003-2004)

Joe Sakic
Peter Forsberg
Teemu Selanne
Paul Kariya
Rob Blake
Milan Hejduk
Adam Foote
Alex Tanguay

New York Rangers (2001-2002)

Mark Messier
Eric Lindros
Pavel Bure
Brian Leetch
Theo Fleury
Mike Richter
Petr Nedved

New Jersey Devils (2002-2003)

Martin Brodeur
Scott Niedermeyer
Patrik Elias
Joe Nieuwendyk
Brian Rafalski
Scott Stevens
Scott Gomez (yes this guy was really great back then!)

CJ wrote: Colorado Avalanche (2003-2004)

Joe Sakic
Peter Forsberg
Teemu Selanne
Paul Kariya
Rob Blake
Milan Hejduk
Adam Foote
Alex Tanguay

Despite being a huge Avs fan back in the days, I never really liked this formation that much. I remember seeing on the news on July 1st that they signed Kariya and Selanne and I got so over excited. The almighty Kariya and Selanne duo is back together and of top of that with my team! I know what they wanted to accomplish by signing them but it never worked. I think they signed too many star players trying to look like the "ultimate" team. Which was no where close to the dream team that won in 2001. I don't know why but I always thought they had less "charm" than with Bourque and Roy. That year they tried too much IMO and it played against them.

CJ wrote:I'll start a question what was your all time NHL team? I can only remember from the 90's forward so I'll start with these:

Detroit Red Wings (2001-2002)

Sergei Fedorov
Dominik Hasek
Brett Hull
Nicklas Lidström
Luc Robitaille
Brendan Shanahan
Igor Larionov
Chris Chelios
Pavel Datsyuk (young guy then)

Mine is the 95-96 team that won 62 games and had 131 pts. Didn't have the HHoF star power, but they absolutely CLOBBERED teams that season, and people forget that. Yes... they lit up Montreal 11-1 and ended Roy's time in Montreal. They also beat EDM 9-0, LA 9-4, COL 7-0, and STL 8-1 for example. 5 of their 13 losses came Nov. 1st or before. Just... insane. They didn't win the Cup, but they could have and should have if not just for some bad luck. While it was fun to have guys like Larionov and Robitaille on the 4th line, Brett Hull on the 3rd line, and Fetisov on the 3rd pairing with that 2002 Cup squad... they still weren't as loaded in a way as that 1995-96 team.

Those teams had Keith Primeau, Dino Ciccarelli, Yzerman, Fedorov, Kozlov at forward. The blue line was Coffey, Konstantinov, Lidstrom, and Fetisov as their top 4, and guys like Rouse, Ramsey, Dandenault (at times), and Bergevin as the others. People REALLY under-rate that blue line. They also traded for Larionov and Maltby that year. For muscle they had Primeau, McCarty, Marty Lapointe, and Stu freaking Grimson.


Fun fact about that 2001-02 DET team you mentioned: DET played VAN in the first round en route to the Cup, and a young Pavel Datsyuk was benched in that series by Scotty Bowman for "being a huge defensive liability".


philou:

Some of my favorite Avs (yes, we Wings fans had some) included Adam Freaking Deadmarsh (Wings Killer, his official name, and a career ended too soon), Chris Drury, and later Steve Konowalchuk.

Deadmarsh was awesome and yes I was sad when they traded him but it's been so long that I don't remember if it was because of his injuries or not. I just remember that he vanished too soon.

I was happy back then when the acquired Konowalchuk. He even got more pts than Selanne the year he was there!

Drury is Drury. I remember being mad when they traded him as he was among the good youngsters among the team when they won in 2001. I just look up what they got when they traded him because I forgot about it and man they should have keep him. (Derek Morris, Dean MacAmmond and Jeff Shantz what a joke)

Great idea CJ! I'll definitely have multiple teams to post


My first team, not that they're #1 to me (I don't think I have such a thing HaHa), are the Toronto Maple Leafs from 1975-1978; in 1975-76 they played a classic 7 game Quarterfinals series, losing to the Flyers 4-3...in the 1976-77 they again played the Flyers in the Quarterfinals and this time lost in 6 games...and in 1977-78 they beat the Islanders in OT in game 7 in the Quarterfinals before being swept by the mighty Montreal Canadiens in the Semifinals

Toronto Maple Leafs 1975-78
C Darryl Sittler
LW Tiger Williams
RW Lanny McDonald
D Borje Salming
D Ian Turnbull
G Mike Plamateer

Mike Palmateer





And then there's maybe the most dominant/best team ever...the Montreal team that won 4 straight Cups in the late 70s (in 75-76 they lost 11 games + 1 loss in the playoffs, in 76-77 they lost 8 games + 2 in the playoffs, in 77-78 they lost 11 games + 3 in the playoffs)

Montreal Canadiens 1976-79
RW Guy Lafleur
C Jacques Lemaire
LW Steve Shutt
C Peter Mahovlich
C Doug Risebrough
RW Mario Tremblay
RW Yvan Cournoyer
D Guy Lapointe
D Serge Savard
D Larry Robinson
G Ken Dryden

Lapointe, Dryden and Savard

A couple other "favourite teams" from the 70s (I thought I'd work my way from the 70s through the 80s and into the 90s)




CSKA Moscow 1975-76
LW Valeri Kharlamov
C Alexander Maltsev (on loan from Moscow Dynamo)
RW Boris Mikhailov
RW Boris Alexandrov
C Vladimir Petrov
D Alexander Gusev
D Gennadi Tsygankov
D Valeri Vasilyev (on loan from Moscow Dynamo)
G Vladislav Tretiak

This team went 2-1-1 in their four games, beating the Rangers 7-3 and the Bruins 5-2, playing to a 3-3 tie against the Montreal Canadiens on New Year's Eve (in what has been called "the greatest game ever" by some), and losing to the Philadelphia Flyers 4-1.

In the first NHL/Soviet League Super Series the Soviets supplemented their top teams with players loaned from other teams; CSKA Moscow had 6 such players when they played against the NHL teams.

The other Soviet League team that series (Krylya Sovetov Moscow) went 3-1-0 and included defensemen Sergei Babinov and Yuri Lyapkin & forwards Vyacheslav Anisin, Vladimir Shadrin, Viktor Shalimov and Alexander Yakushev (Lyapkin, Shadrin, Shalimov and Yakushev were all loaned players); goaltender Alexander Sidelnikov was not anywhere near as good as Tretiak (or other top goaltenders of the era)

The top Soviet teams/players of this era were extremely famous and significantly praised in North America at the time


This photo of Tretiak is not from 1975-76 but (I think) from around 1981...but I LOVE the look of goalies wearing the white Bauer skates






Czecholslovakia 1976 Canada Cup
C Milan Nový
C Ivan Hlinka
C Peter Šťastný
LW Jiří Holík
LW Jaroslav Pouzar
RW Marián Šťastný
RW František Černík
D Jiří Bubla
D Milan Chalupa
D Miroslav Dvořák
D František Kaberle
D František Pospíšil
G Vladimír Dzurilla
G Jiří Holeček

This team beat the Soviets 5-3 and Canada 1-0 in the round robin, and made it to the final before losing to Canada (on Darryl Sittler's famous OT goal). Most of the players were also the ones that won the World Championships over the Soviets in 1972, 1976 and 1977


Dzurilla, one of my favourite goaltenders






It was these teams/players that initially sparked the love of international hockey for me (along with the books Lloyd Percival's Total Conditioning for Hockey & Tarasov's Hockey Technique).

I also have a book by Tarasov!
Written in 1970, I wonder if it contains much of the same.
Never read it entirelly, just glanced in it.

Manimal wrote:I also have a book by Tarasov!
Written in 1970, I wonder if it contains much of the same.
Never read it entirelly, just glanced in it.

That's cool! Is it in English? If so, I suspect it'd be the same book...or is it in Swedish?

nino33 wrote:
Lapointe, Dryden and Savard

I remember Dryden been interviewed about that picture because he was looking so relax, nonchalant. He simply answered that when Savard had the puck he knew nobody was able to pokecheck him and he wasn't worried at all when he was around the net carrying the puck.

nino33 wrote:

Manimal wrote:I also have a book by Tarasov!
Written in 1970, I wonder if it contains much of the same.
Never read it entirelly, just glanced in it.

That's cool! Is it in English? If so, I suspect it'd be the same book...or is it in Swedish?

It is in Swedish, without that foreword

Have to have Islanders team early 80's 4 Stanley Cups in a row