Sunday, November 2, 2008

Falcons Focus, The Defensemen

Every now and then I'll be doing some features on the Falcons players. 9 games into the season there have been some superb performances by the Falcons blueliners. Lets take a look at the contributions and rankings of the Falcons defensemen:


Goals
Peckham 2
Wild 1
Taylor 1
Bisaillon 1

Assists
Peckham 3
Chorney 3
Wild 2
Taylor 2
Hrabal 1
Bisaillon 1

Points
Peckham 2-3-5
Wild 1-2-3
Taylor 1-2-3
Chorney 0-3-3
Bisaillon 1-1-2
Hrabal 0-1-1

+/-
Bisaillon +6
Wild +3
Taylor +3
Peckham +2
Gabinet +1
Young -1
Hrabal -2
Chorney -6

The Falcons 4 best defensemen statistically have been Theo Peckham, Sebastien Bisaillon, Cody Wild, and Jake Taylor. Peckham and Taylor have both played in all 9 Falcons games this season while Bisaillion has been a scratch once and Wild has been a scratch 3 times.


At this point in time neither Wild nor Bisaillon should be a healthy scratch again anytime soon. Bisaillon has provided a nice mix of offense and solid defense while also being happy to oblige in the physical game. Wild has been a nice mix of speed and offensive flair while not costing his team defensively.


Josef Hrabal has played in all of 1 game in which he made a solid pass for a goal but ended the night a -2. Mike Gabinet played in 3 games before suffering an injury.


Jake Taylor and Taylor Chorney have been a consistent pairing for the last 4-5 games or so. Chorney's +/- has taken a nose dive and is the worst on the team. Despite this he has shown some solid offensive ability, however unlike Cody Wild, he has yet to balance solid defensive play with his offensive abilities. Taylor has been a mixed bag and about what should be expected of a likely career AHL player.


Bryan Young has yet to take the next step in his development and it would be my opinion that he could be the teams next healthy scratch if coach Truitt is looking to insert Hrabal or Gabinet into the lineup.


After the teams first 4 weekends of play, this is how I would rate the teams depth chart (this does not have anything to do with NHL potential, just the quality of AHL play to date)


1) Theo Peckham
2) Sebastien Bisaillon
3) Cody Wild
4) Jake Taylor
5) Taylor Chorney
6) Bryan Young
7) Josef Hrabal
8) Mike Gabinet

2 comments:

Jonathan Willis said...

Lowetide suggested the other day that Bisaillon (a favourite of his) was facing the softest competition on the team (going by who was scoring against him) while Taylor was facing some of the toughest.

How do you see the matchups?

Bryanbryoil said...

Peckham and Chorney/Taylor have probably faced the toughest opposition, but Bisaillon has done well in every situation. His +/- is amoung the best in the AHL, and I have yet to see him overmatched defensively. IMO he could play in either of the top 2 pairings and be fine.

Looking back at the box scores he has played with Peckham, Young, and Taylor.

The thing about this years Falcons is that Truitt isn't nearly as matchup oriented as Buchberger was. Often times the top line goes head up with the opposing teams top line, he'll send the top line out for defensive zone draws (Buchberger very rarely did that). Truitt seems confident in his players and will roll any line or d pairing in any situation. And really likes rolling his lines fluidly.

Of course at the very end of the game things change a bit, however Truitt shows a LOT more confidence in his players and most of them are flourishing from it.