Quote:
Originally Posted by FanIn80
I literally gave the example in my post. The Pens.
I can't think of a single example of a Cup-winning team with a Backlund-qualty shutdown guy as a top-six center.
Oilers had 99/11 as their top Cs. McTavish was their shutdown guy. We had Nieuwy and Killer as our top two with Otto as our shutdown. Islanders had Brent Sutter as their shut down on the third line.
Those aren't the only examples, just ones that immediately come to mind.
McTavish, Otto, Sutter, Staal, etc. All Cup-winning 3rd line shutdown Cs on teams with two scoring lines above them. That's the category that Backlund should have been in. He's the Otto behind Neiuwendyk and Gilmour -- the Staal behind Crosby and Malkin -- not the Forsberg behind Sakic or Fedorov behind Yzerman.
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Sid has always been a good two way guy. And Malkin wasn't shabby. The whole team was pretty good that way.
And if you are going to try an overwhelm like that your centres better be Sid and Malkin versus Monahan/Lindholm and Bennett. Even on a good team Bennett is a 60 point guy. He just happens to play behind a PPG Selke guy on the top line.