elvis15

Well, close enough: Garrison will be a great fit - Give him time

Cue the 'Garrison is awesome' threads.

Yeah, he was on the ice for the 3rd Bulls goal, but also on the ice for the 2nd Frontenacs goal. Not sure if was playing less minutes of it it was luck of the draw, or what that he didn't factor in more of the points.

Well, the one I posted was from Canucks Army, so as bloggers of the Canucks, they are probably pretty aware of the fans and their idiocy.

JASON GARRISON AND THE GHOST OF KEITH BALLARD Good read, with more supporting stats at the '...', but I think there's some truth to people being ready to dismiss any of our acquisitions from Florida as failures too quickly. It doesn't help when they all make about the same amount but Garrison does have good underlying stats so far this year, and people's tune will change if he starts scoring.

I just made a post in the Weiss thread about that, their Corsi On is -13 and their PDO is 896. That includes some outliers like Tyson Strachan having only played one game but having a -79.79 Corsi, but Ellerby, Kuba, Upshall and Weiss are all below -20 and Parros is -38.3. That is ugly even for small sample sizes. I did look at our numbers for the defence though, and Garrison's are pretty good: 5.5 Corsi On with 1.8 QoC. Edler's about the same (slightly better Corsi On) while Tanev and Ballard have awesome Corsi On but against weak QoC. Hamhuis and Bieksa have ugly Corsi On at -16 and -17 respectively while facing just a bit better than average QoC.

Garrison - do we really want him? That's right, we should put in Barker and utilize all his dominating toughness.

Well, one of the initial comparisons I found was of Brenden Morrow, which I think makes sense. Gaunce is a little bigger than Morrow, but both are great leaders and contribute a lot to their teams that way. He will likely have some pretty good seasons of point production (Morrow had two great seasons of 74 and 65, but otherwise he was a 40-50 point guy), but will be most useful due to his all around game. If his offence continues to develop, it's possible he even gets to a 1st line center role, but more likely a 2nd line center who's very capable on the 3rd or 4th. Gaunce was a +1 in a 3-1 win over the London Knights, the OHL's top team, last night. That puts the Bulls at 3rd overall and 2nd in the East.

Kitchener beat Erie 5-1 tonight, McEneny with an assist and a +3 playing on the left of Ryan Murphy for the most part 5 on 5.

Bulls lead division after 4-1 win...

I hope it will, but I'm also tempering my expectations just in case.

I don't see the top end offensive talent necessarily in him at this point. He is effective and gets the job done, but I don't see him producing to the level someone like Getzlaf has (around a point a game player). He'll still be quite good if he continues to progress, but I don't yet see him as someone to get 80-90 points in the NHL.

Ok, now that Corrado's back in Kitchener, the Friday night game against Erie is going to be on Sportsnet One (4pm PT). A good chance to watch Corrado and McEneny. Playing Brampton tonight, currently 3-3 in OT. Corrado's a +1 with no points, but McEneny has an assist (-2).

Nice try. He looks like he'll be good in future, just how much offence he'll be able to provide. He already had the 2 way skills so far and 1g 1a (+4) is a very nice bonus. Scratch that, 1g 3a (+6)!

Yeah, I don't see him making our lineup unless we don't bring back Manny (assuming continued drawbacks from his eye injury and him not taking a lesser deal) and don't find someone else to replace him. Lapierre is more likely to get first crack at the 3rd line C position but it's possible he doesn't do enough to earn it (I like him better at 4C anyway) and Gaunce has an excellent camp next year to beat him out, but that is a lot of variables.

Yup. Played well from what I saw in the highlights packages. 1g, 2a and a +2 against Guelph in a 6-3 win 1g, 1a and +1 in a 3-2 win against Kitchener Gaunce had a nicer tip than the one for his goal in the Kitchener game, but it hit the crossbar. He's been involved in the cycle a lot too as well as spending time in front of the net, and I think he's starting to find a comfortable spot in his game. Hopefully he continues to improve.

He was good that game, although I found him noticeably coasting a few times. Does tend to get in the right areas though and does well at both ends. That's the kind of detail it's hard to gauge without watching players, and it would be nice to see a few games of Gaunce this year. Corrado we saw in the selection camp and the Subway Series, but Gaunce missed out on that with his shoulder injury.

Certainly no point in showing a Bulls game until the WJs are over, and they have Subban back in net. But, was good to have the Kitchener game on a while back to see McEneny, now just hoping for Sudbury or Belleville (or any combination of the three) while we're missing NHL hockey.

Well, it is an issue if he's taking 60+sec shifts. I didn't time him at all when watching the game on Friday but I did notice once where he was out on the ice for awhile. If it is just about a bad play defensively, it's a pretty tough message to send a guy with some offensive ability to the locker room for the last period when your team is having a really tough time scoring goals.

We'll have to see how he does in the Friday game on Sportsnet.

No points and a -3 from McEneny tonight. They play again tomorrow against London (should be a good test against a strong team) and I believe their game on Nov 30 is on Sportsnet.

Gaunce picked up a goal tonight in a 3-2 overtime win over Plymouth. It was a cross crease pass from the corner and he fanned on it a bit but it bounced around and went in (highlights are on their website).

Yes, it is an international sized ice surface. From the wiki page for the arena:

And that's a soft 'may' as a number of scouts have said his skating isn't really bad at all. It may not be elite or even above average, but he does skate fairly well north-south and it may only be certain aspects of his skating (first step and agility) that need any work.

Apparently Gaunce got hurt in Friday's game against Sudbury. Gaunce sidelined three to six weeks