After slogging through a player-by-player assessment in my NYR Facts of Life series, I figured it was finally time for my usual report card. As I've done in the past, I graded each player based on expectations, performance all season long and performance when it counted. I am, admittedly, a tough grader. If you feel so inclined, you can refer back to the report cards for the last two seasons: '07-08 and '08-09. Explanations are brief, if only because I already hit upon each player in the Facts of Life.
Forwards
#42 Artem Anisimov: Rookie skated with his head down and didn't show up until end. C
#16 Sean Avery: Loved the fire when it flared, too often it was smoldering. C-
#22 Brian Boyle: He's tall. D
#87 Donald Brashear: Never forgive Sather. F
#36 Dane Byers: Slow but showed heart. INC
#24 Ryan Callahan: Didn't improve on the ice but accepted leadership role. A-
#26 Erik Christensen: Dude was on the waiver wire. B+
#23 Chris Drury: Good third liner and PKer. Terrible captain and contract. C-
#17 Brandon Dubinsky: Held out thinking he was something special. Never really proved it. B-
#10 Marian Gaborik: All-world talent was durable, but disappeared when needed most. A
#21 Chris Higgins: At least he tried. C-
#12 Olli Jokinen: Wasn't a savior but did add some offense. C
#12 Ales Kotalik: Defensive disaster was utter failure. F
#81 Enver Lisin: What speed! And, uh, did I mention speed? D
#84 Corey Locke: He's short. INC
#38 P.A. Parenteau: Shootout star mediocre during regulation. C+
#20 Vinny Prospal: Some great moments, but they were just moments - not a season. B-
#8 Brandon Prust: Can't believe Calgary gave him away. A
#45 Jody Shelley: Given a choice, I'd give him the C. A
#34 Aaron Voros: People's Champ tried, just wasn't that good. B-
Defensemen
#4 Michael Del Zotto: Rookie has great ice-sight, just blind in his own zone. C
#25 Anders Eriksson: Slow and steady on the blueline. A
#97 Matt Gilroy: Spent too much time with Wade Redden. D
#5 Dan Girardi: Solid on D but didn't defend Gabby. C-
#49 Ilkka Heikkinen: Quiet seven-game stint. INC
#44 Corey Potter: Deserves a NHL shot. INC
#6 Wade Redden: Actually had a better season than last, still got paid though. F
#33 Michal Rozsival: Never felt the wrath of accountability. Here he does. F
#54 Bobby Sanguinetti: When does "bust" enter the conversation? INC
#18 Marc Staal: Best blueliner still had bad moments, especially a slow start. A-
Goaltenders
#31 Alex Auld: Really was quite good for what little he played. INC
#29 Chad Johnson: Didn't earn the coach's trust. INC
#30 Henrik Lundqvist: All that stood between us and last-place Edmonton, even with soft goals. A
#40 Steve Valiquette: Nice guy, bad goalie. F
#31 Matt Zaba: Twitchy. INC
5 comments:
Would be interested to see how you graded the Coach and Sather for this season too.
Dubi and Cally's ratings should flip. Dubi improved his point total (was 55pt or so season if you add those injury games back at his pace). He played tough minutes against good guys. Saw pp and pk time, often against top units. The dude literally did a little bit of everything for us, and had a much better scoring touch than Cally.
Like Cally, Dubi never lacked the effort. But if there's a knock on him, it's that he'd sometimes try to do too much and goof up.
-j0ehoe
If we're looking at it from a standpoint that C is comparable to an average performance, F is a total failure, and A is above and beyond, then I'm pretty content with all those scores, aside from a + and - here and there. I don't know if I agree with the team score. Is that an actual mathematic average of all the players’ scores, or just an assessment of the team? I hate to say it, but I think they deserve a D, maybe a D+. To say that they were a C- tells me they were an average team that played almost like a bad team. I kind of viewed them more as a bad team that had the occasional good or average showing. I know it's all semantics, just my opinion.
completely shifting gears here, check out this clip of the NHL's fearless leader:
http://www.downgoesbrown.com/2010/05/like-bettman-what-does-gary-do-all-day.html
Yea agree with Duniyadnd, grade Torts and Sather.
Post a Comment