Jon Prescription said:
Yeah, but you have to remember it's his first ever pro games... It's a WEE bit different from playing against kids all around your own age. There's definately an adjustment curve and some people have it built into them where they can just play solid at every level. He might be one of the more normal guys who just needs a bit of time to get used to the better overall play. If I was an Islander fan, I wouldn't be worried about that at all. He's still young as can be.
He's also playing on a team missing a lot of regulars to injury and call up. Looking at the lineup from the last game they played, they went with 7 Dmen, 3 of which were in the ECHL until the injuries struck, 1 was a 19yo 2005 draft pick in his first AHL game, and the other three are career AHLers with more or less zero chance of ever making the NHL. On top of that, the team only had 8 forwards dresssed, 3 of whom were ECHLers, 1 was a 20yo undrafted juniors guy getting his first taste of pro hockey, a rookie, and two career AHLers.
Kind of hard to judge a guy's defense based on his +/- in a situation like that. Bridgeport at the moment looks like an ECHL team, and not even a full one at that. I suspect he's drawing the top checking assignments as well, because looking at that roster, he's probably the best checking center on the team (not much of an accomplishment, admittedly). And when you're playing in front of a defense that wouldn't stand out in the ECHL against other team's top lines, I don't care how good defensively you are, it's going to be a struggle to have a good +/-. Might as well be knocking Brian Willsie's -21.
Anyway, at the moment, his +/-, while not particularly exciting, doesn't concern me. When he's had more time to adjust and the team is better, then I think it might be worth looking at. But right now, I suspect it's horribly skewed.