Troy Ward will definitely have a hard time whether he should put Poirer on the playoff roster. I think he'll play ahead of others. Darn, they have 17 healthy forwards, I wonder who will sit out? Granlund, Reinhart, Street, Baertschi, Jones, Miller, Locke, Hanowski, Knight, Bancks, Jooris and Poirer I think will be in the lineup. Klimchuk, Olson, Gilles, Hatthaway, Eddy and Kremyr are the rest of forwards might be in the bubbles. I am sure Drury and PMM who follows the Heat all season might have a better idea than me.
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Troy Ward will definitely have a hard time whether he should put Poirer on the playoff roster. I think he'll play ahead of others. Darn, they have 17 healthy forwards, I wonder who will sit out? Granlund, Reinhart, Street, Baertschi, Jones, Miller, Locke, Hanowski, Knight, Bancks, Jooris and Poirer I think will be in the lineup. Klimchuk, Olson, Gilles, Hatthaway, Eddy and Kremyr are the rest of forwards might be in the bubbles. I am sure Drury and PMM who follows the Heat all season might have a better idea than me.
I'd have Olson in there ahead of Bancks if it was me. I know Carter is a heart and soul guy, but how do you sit a guy who had 44 points?
Have to say, prior to seeing Poirier play, I had him in the "Well it's nice they are letting him play with the big boys but no chance he makes the playoff team". Crow tastes pretty okay with all this chocolate.
These would be my lineup predictions based on the current Abbotsford roster:
In:
Ben Street
Corban Knight
Blair Jones
Corey Locke
Emile Poirier
Max Reinhart
Markus Granlund
Ben Hanowski
Carter Bancks
Sven Baertschi
Brett Olson
Chris Breen
Derek Smith
Chad Billins
Kane LaFranchise
Shane O'Brien
Joni Ortio
Doug Carr
Bubble/Rotating Players:
Morgan Klimchuk
Tim Miller
Josh Jooris
Brady Lamb
Brett Kulak
Zach Davies
Dean Arsene
Out:
Collin Valcourt
Jordan Kremyr
David Eddy
Michael Ferland (IR)
Coda Gordan
Garnet Hathaway
Trevor Gillies
Zach Tolkinien
Patrick Sieloff (IR)
Keegan Kanzig
Eric Roy
Ryan Culkin
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Just got back from the game and am headed to bed. I'll type more later, but wanted to say that Poirier looked friggin awesome. Fast as hell, Good positioning, good hands and a little chippy. Just as advertised.
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Drury18 ... so you think Jooris is in the bubble? Like I said you follow this team more than I do so I believe you. I always thought Jooris is one of the good forward but I guess I was wrong.
Jooris is a good forward, but he's a rookie and he seems to have hit some growing pains at a bad time. He has gone cold the last little while offensively (1a in his last 8 games). He does bring some grit to the game, but so does Bancks and Olson and quite frankly, both have done a better job playing 3 zone hockey lately.
I kind of see Jooris/Miller/Klimchuk being the players that are rotated into the lineup depending on the tone of the game and needs to support our Top 6. As this time, I would give Miller or Klimchuk the nod over Jooris.
OK now that I got a full nights sleep. On to the game notes...
The Heat were lucky to win this game. They had a good 1st period and looked awful in the 2nd and 3rd. They were badly outshot 40-26. And the Heat iced the puck at almost every opportunity after the 1st. It was really frustrating, there were a few times where the dman had a guy wide open 15 feet in front of him and they sent the puck down the rink anyways. However, when they did seem to try to pass out of the zone they had a tough time getting it out. I don't watch the Heat so maybe this was just a one game thing, but the defense did not look very good. I expected more out of the guys who had been up with the big team, but really I wasn't that impressed with any of them.
So on to the individual players (I will admit much of my focus was on Klimchuk and Poirier):
The good:
Poirier - Awesome as stated above. He also had another breakaway very similar to the the one he scored on the highlights above where he just blew by everyone. I will honestly be shocked if he isn't a regular in Calgary by the end of next season. The only negative I could see is that on a couple shifts he went to the bench early because he was out of breath, but that obviously can be fixed. He also floated a bit on his first shift, but that was corrected quickly. Another part of his game that I liked was how often he stuck up for his teammates in a scrum, he was usually the first guy in there.
The rest of Poirier's line aka Granlund & Reinhart - This line was the only one that got anything going. Seemed like the only time we were in the offensive zone was one these guys were out there. Both had some good chances and some nice passes. Granlund and Reinhart were usually the ones who brought the puck in and gained the offensive zone.
Ortio - Really can't blame any of the goals on him, although he gave a couple of big rebounds. He made some really good saves. Overall he was impressive.
The meh:
Chad Billins - Only defenseman that provided any sort of offense and did ok in his own end. Also didn't have to ice everytime to clear the zone.
Klimchuk - showed a couple flashes of skill, but overall (based on this single game) not anywhere near as far in his development as Poirier. Had a couple of nice takeaways on the backcheck.
Jooris - He was mixing it up a lot. He took the penalty on the McKenzie hit sticking up for Billins. I'll take Drury18's word for it that Olson brings the same kind of grit that Jooris does, but I didn't really notice it in this one, except when he dug it out on the Locke goal.
Olson-Locke-Jones - They get a reprieve from the bad section because of the play on the gwg. However, they were mostly in their own zone the whole game.
The Bad:
The Defense - As stated above the D couldn't clear the zone and really didn't help Ortio in front of the net.
The rest didn't make a huge impression on me so take that for whatever it's worth. Klimchuk probably would have been grouped in this section if I had not been focusing on him. I was disappointed that Hanowski didn't seem to stick out, out of all the players that were on the big club this year he stuck out the least. I was also entertaining my 7 month old during parts of the game so I might have missed some things, but I saw all the goals.
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Some of your "bad" category guys were on a 3 and 3. 3 games in 3 nights on the road. Tough to be fresh on the 3rd night. just saying.
Fair enough. Also the Texas Stars are the best team in the league so playing them on a 3rd night probably isn't a good thing. It explains the fact they played bad, but doesn't change it.
