Just on the Bjoog thing - like Brassard (and so many before him), you kinda have to break down what he's been doing with who to get a true idea of what he's doing here as a centre, although its really difficult to be sure with a sample size this small.
Here's the
NST of Bjoogs with Geno, Sid and Kessel - and here's the interesting take aways as that stat chart is horrible to look like -
Bjoogs, Geno, Kessel got its face smashed in despite princely zone starts. I don't think we'll see that again in a hurry. Hasn't really played with Geno other than that.
Bjoogs and Sid worked okay but I don't see why you'd see it again this season when Sid's got so many RWs that work.
The actual interesting parts -
Bjoogs has split his time as a centre pretty evenly for having Phil and not having Phil.
With Phil, his possession stats were awful and they got outscored despite getting generous zone starts.
Without however, the possession stats aren't much better but he seems to be absolutely killing the opposition's higher danger chances and that's why the opposition haven't scored in this scenario yet. Possession's a bit underwhelming but as a shut down line that gets lots of defensive zone starts there seems to be potential.
And when that's possible, that's something to build off.
I don't know how we use Bjoogs best going forwards. He's got a lot of talent but I'm not sure I'm seeing a lot of fits. But at the very least I think he can be a shutdown centre and that's something.
Pre-season's a short time with a lot of variables. I'd be reluctant to place more weight on it than consistency in the AHL and, at least in terms of production, that's something ZAR's done a lot better than Johnson.
Blasphemy. Big blasphemy. He's been so important for us and you're not finding a better use of his cap hit in free agency.
