At this time of year, a lot of the Blue jacket bloggers are doing year end reviews. Many are quite interesting as they provide some remembrances of some things thet have gone from my mind from during the year.
Over at The Dark Blue Jacket Andy published a piece mostly about Jeff Carter. But early in the article he presents a tidbit of statistics on centers. “EVERY playoff team this year but Washington and Phoenix has at least one center with more than 47 points. Washington’s Nicklas Backstrom had 44 points in only 42 games, so make it 15 out of 16.
Further, 11 of the 16 have more than one center with more than 47 points (Boston with three, the other ten with two each), which finally brings us to the point. Of the 28 centers that made the playoffs and scored more than 47 points this year, 24 were drafted by their current team.” and ” For their efforts, the Blue Jackets have only had three centers accrue more than 47 points in a single season (A. Cassels, 68pts, ‘02-‘03; A. Vermette, 65pts, ‘09-‘10; E. Knutsen, 53pts, ‘00-‘01). Since the lockout, only Derick Brassard, Antoine Vermette, and 72 year old Sergei Fedorov have scored more than 35 points while playing center for the Blue Jackets.”
To further Andy’s information, at the trade deadline this year, the Blue Jackets traded away 3 starting centers. The team know for it’s dearth of centers
Well, how’d that go? At first there was a drop of in the face off wins, The trio of Carter, Vermette and Phallson all were well above 50% face off wins. But the 3 stepping up, Brassard, Letestu and Johansen, did step up. Ryan Johansen had not taken a lot of NHL face offs this year, he got better with the experience. Both Brassard and Letestu stepped up and increased their face off percentage. By the end of the season, and particularly in the 19 game final run, the centers played well. No question Johansen needs to have more experience, but there is only one way to get that, play!! D MacKinenzie and newbe Darryl Boyce, both free agents this summer played OK as 4th line centers.
In the wings, at the center position, we also have Boone Jenner , Captain of the Oshawa Generals. Boone got his first goal in the last games he played for Springfield at the end of the season. Also Kevin Lynch from the University of Michigan, T J Tynan of Notre Dame and Michael Chaput of the Shawinigan Cataracts are in the pipeline. for the center position.
The summer trade winds are a blowing, so who knows what they will bring or take, but
We Want the Cup