What a Difference a Year Makes

In the above picture Rob Schremp celebrates his 1st goal as a Springfield Falcon on October 7th 2007, an OT winner in his 3rd game as a Falcon in the '07-08 season. This season it took him until his 14th game to score his first of the season. So far his season to date has been inferior to his '07-08 campaign statistically.

I decided to look at select Oilers prospects as well as 2 new key Falcons to compare how they did last season Vs. this season in the same amount of games they've played to date. Let's see how they've done in relation to what they did last year.....

Rob Schremp
'07-08 34gp. 9-27-36 -4 83sog. 30pim.
'08-09 34gp. 5-21-26 -5 74sog. 14pim.
-10 points, -9 in shots on goal
Worse in all areas except he's taking less non physical penalties (-16PIM).

Ryan Potulny
'07-08 36gp. 13-18-31 -11 117sog. 35pim.
'08-09 36gp. 17-14-31 -3 130sog. 26pim.
+8 in +/- , +13 in sog., -9 PIM.
Better across the board except in total points

Ryan Stone
'07-08 40gp. 7-15-22 -3 71sog. 81pim.
'08-09 40gp. 10-20-30 +3 72sog. 57pim.
Better in all areas except less PIM. for a physical player (-24PIM)

Slava Trukhno
'07-08 27gp. 5-8-13 -3 18sog. 17pim.
'08-09 27gp. 3-12-15 -1 46sog. 14pim.
Showed a large improvement in shots on goal (+28) and small improvements elsewhere.

Ryan O'Marra
'07-08 31gp. total 2-7-9 +1 43sog. 31pim.
'08-09 32gp. 1-4-5 -6 43sog. 25pim.
-4 points -8 in +/-
Absolutely no improvement shown.

Colin McDonald
'07-08 40gp. 9-10-19 -10 101sog. 28pim.
'08-09 40gp. 3-5-8 -7 65sog. 26pim.
-11 points -36sog.
A little better in +/- but not enough to offset his lack of production.

Theo Peckham
'07-08 39gp. 6-2-8 -9 37sog. 111pim.
'08-09 39gp. 5-11-16 -1 53sog. 73pim.
Double the points(+8), +16 in sog., +8 in +/- but almost 40 less PIM for what should be one of the Falcons most physical players.

Outside of Peckham, the other returning Falcons players have shown little progress statistically or are headed in the wrong direction altogether. Their team has been MUCH worse to this point in the season this year, but it is definitely not an encouraging trend. And Peckham hasn't been nearly as physical and intimidating as he was last season despite the fact that he's been better offensively and defensively this season.

If the purpose of an AHL affiliate is to improve their players on paper the Oilers have failed on that department for whatever reason. I feel that the Falcons will go on a tear soon, but the problem is that guys like McDonald and O'Marra will most likely be HS casualties of a stronger lineup. However their play dictates less ice time anyway.

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