Quote:
Originally Posted by GranteedEV
we must have watched a different season. All I saw was Engelland getting exploited in the slot for two months once his minutes went up, whereas at least earlier in the season you could blame Hartley for pairing him with Smid and both having the same limited mobility/puckhandling/passing
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Yeah, you watched something else.
Took a quick look at the end of the year, at Engelland's split season, based on stats from NHL.com to prove out what I thought was pretty decent step up from him from early in the year.
A pretty unspectacular first 55 games at a -15, but in crunch time as the Flames try and stay in the race, the last 21 games after Gio goes down, his minutes increase by 60+% to average around 17-18 minutes and he ends that stretch a -1.
Averaged 20 minutes in the playoffs, -1 in 11 games...for reference, Russell was a -9 in the playoffs and Wideman a -2.
For a 5/6 (6 mainly) guy, that's pretty good. And as mentioned, one of the few who'd drop the gloves without much thought, which is still needed in this game for the boost it can provide the team.
http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showpos...&postcount=289