One thing is for sure -I’m glad it’s not me who has to make the decision on who to pick .. I think I would have some serious A.D.D. If I had to choose ..
I couldn’t deny the gaping holes in our D though and of course our G situation ..rebuilding yes but something like 243 goals given up ( so far) and 16 in our last 2 games ( yes I know - against top tier teams)...
Friends will let friends know in situations whether they go to university or not which should help us plan accordingly
One thing to consider is that this team has given up 63 goals in 12 games vs the top 3 offenses in the league (Ottawa, niagara, London)
That means we have given up 5.25 goals against per game vs the best of the best.
Some perspective: SSM has 36 goals against in 7 games vs those same top 3 offenses (5.14 per game).
Those teams just score on everyone. Heck they each average about 4.5 goals a game as a team.
Erie on the year has this for goals against:
243 GA
56 GP
4.33 average
But if we remove the games vs the top 3 offenses we see this:
180 GA
44 GP
4.09 average
Still not great and needs to improve but I don’t think it is 1 simple solution
1) fix the garbage PK. We have an historically bad PK and that to me is mostly to blame on the coaches .. looking at you Mr BJ Adams.. it is inexcusable. Our PK has dropped 12% this year. If our PK was the same percentage as last year, we would have 11 less goals against
2) we have had bad injury luck for the year but definitely on defense. Beamish has missed 34+ games, Martin has missed 8 games, Kischnick 10+, and to top it off, Drysdale is a 16 year old who though has been amazing is still a rookie making rookie mistakes
3) the goalies have just been inconsistent. Battlagia was a mess and didn’t work out and Murphy, though better recently, still has not been great all year (regardless of the defense)
4) this is a young and limited offense. Thus they aren’t going to draw many PP, they aren’t going to possess the puck a lot (heck our face off % has to be dead last in the league or close to it) and they aren’t going to be top defensive forwards at this point in their young career
There are many issues with the GA.
The PK, the coaching, the defensive players themselves, the youth, the lack of 2 way forwards, and the goalies
Most of these issues can be fixed by just getting older and the coaches start to coach up more.