2011 CBJ Traverse City Roster Review-Defensemen/Goalies
- Updated: September 3, 2011
Ok time to talk about the defensemen and goaltenders the Blue Jackets will be taking up to Traverse City. For the second year in a row the Jackets are only bringing prospects to Traverse City and are bringing the same eight defensemen they took last year. Now you can take this a lot of different ways but note that six of the nine played for a Jacket’s affiliate with one more playing in the preseason game with Springfield. The team’s defense is pretty big averaging 6’3″, the shortest defensemen are Cody Goloubef and Theo Ruth at 6’1″ with the two tallest being Steven Delisle and Anton Blomqvist both listed at 6’6″.
It was kind of a up and down year for Brandon Archibald starting the year as one of the top defensemen with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, then the OHL trade deadline happened. Archibald was traded from the bottom feeding Greyhounds to the OHL West Division leading Saginaw Spirit a trade that included Michael Kantor who played for the Jackets in last year’s tournament. Playing lower in the lineup led to Archibald scoring only 3 assists in 29 games with Saginaw after scoring 19 points(2-17-19) in 37 games with the Hounds. Archibald didn’t have any points in last year’s tournament playing in 3 games with an even rating and no penalty minutes. In my roster preview for last year’s tournament I had Anton Blomqvist coming over to play for the Jackets but I was wrong, to play in the tournament Blomqvist would have had to leave his Swedish team the Malmo Redhawks who the Jackets played in the preseason last year. Blomqvist played for Malmo in two different leagues in Sweden picking up two assists in 35 games picking up 36 penalty minutes. After the Swedish season ended the Jackets signed Blomqvist to a three year entry level contract and he made his North American debut for the Springfield Falcons picking up 17 penalty minutes getting into a fight with only 17 seconds left earning a game misconduct along with a boarding call. This will be Anton’s second trip to Michigan playing in the 09 tournament scoring no points and was a +1 with no penalty minutes. The only real negative about Blomqvist is that he wears number 52 and we all know that in Columbus that number is more evil than the number of the beast. This is Steven Delisle’s fourth trip to Traverse City, the only bad thing is that every year he plays less games starting with four in 2008 to two in 2009 to just one last season when he injured his shoulder in a fight in the team’s tournament opening game.(video taken by me) After healing Delisle was sent to the Fort Wayne Komets where he re-aggravated the injury after appearing in only six games and earning praise from Komets coach Al Sims. Now as I said earlier Delisle is the bigger of the two players at 6’6″ but Delisle doesn’t use his 6’6″ 233 pound frame to punish opponents he uses it more for positional play. Delisle has played seven games in Traverse City picking up a assist and being a +3 with 9 penalty minutes.
Cody Goloubef left Wisconsin a year early to begin his pro career, the bad thing is so did four other defenseman prospects(one more out of college three out of the CHL). As part of Springfield’s crowded blueline Goloubef made it into 50 games scoring 17 points(5-12-17). Goloubef’s two assists led the Blue Jackets defensemen in scoring last year at Traverse City. Other than in Columbus at Rookie Camp and WHL preseason games that start tonight Austin Madaisky hasnt played since February 4th when he suffered a fractured C-7 vertabrae when he went back first into the boards.(<-The hit. first link is Austin talking about it) Madaisky despite missing the last 17 games he still finished second in defensemen scoring with 27 points(7-20-27) matching his career high when he split the 09-10 season with the Blazers and the Calgary Hitman he also won the team’s best defenseman award. His 104 penalty minutes was tops among the prospects going to Traverse City, in three games last year Madaisky had no points and was a -3. Last season John Moore made his professional(AHL) and NHL debut, played in the AHL All-Star Game but is still making his 3rd trip to Traverse City. Moore finished tied for last in the AHL with a -27(yes I checked through everyone 1224th if you must know) last season but scored 24 points in 73 games, Moore also picked up a assist in the AHL All-Star Game. Moore has picked up two assists in his previous trips to Traverse City in six games with a -3 rating and two penalty minutes. It was last year at Traverse City when I was first impressed with Dalton Prout, Prout was passed over in the 09 draft when he was more known as a shutdown defensemen. Then in 2009-10 Prout scored 21 points when he’d only scored 14 points his previous three OHL seasons combined. Prout played in one preseason game with the Jackets, 2 with the Falcons before being sent back to Barrie and was then named the team’s captain. But Barrie was terrible and Prout was a stud scoring 21 points in 23 games really only missing time with two lengthy suspensions. So Prout was dealt to the Saginaw Spirit and he became a teammate of Brandon Archibald and had a A put on his jersey as soon as he was acquired. Prout had to wear 55 in Saginaw and his new coach had this to say about his new Dman “That’s a linebacker number and that’s what he is.” Prout signed his entry level contract this summer and with Springfield’s blueline still a bit full Prout may end up sent down to Chicago and if he does I might have to look into a Express alternate jersey. Prout led the Blue Jacket’s prospects in penalty minutes in last year’s tournament with 14 scoring no points.
First he was Teddy then he was Ted now he’s Theo Ruth or as I will continue to call him probably until he makes his NHL debut the college kid the Blue Jackets got for future Hall of Famer Sergei Fedorov. Theo was the only Jackets defenseman to score a goal in Traverse City last year and also got into his first fight. Ruth scored six points last year for the Falcons I about said “only” but then I checked and thats normal for Theo, Ruth is more known for being a shutdown type defenseman picking up 130 penalty minutes in 100 games at Notre Dame.Savard could of been sent back to Moncton last season but after a strong training camp the Jackets thought it would be better if he spent the year in Springfield. David Savard led all Blue Jackets defensemen at any level in scoring last season with 43 points(11-32-43) in 72 games. The 43 points is the highest for a rookie defensemen in the AHL since 08-09 when Andrei Plekhanov had 25 points.(the farthest I could go back was 05-06) The 11 goals are the most for a AHL dman since Clay Wilson scored 11 after he was acquired from Anaheim. Savard will be making his third trip to Traverse City picking up a assist in each tournament playing in five games with a -1 rating but his +2 rating at last years tournament led the team and was one of only four players with a plus rating two of the other three played in the NHL.
This will be the first time since the 2008 tournament that the Blue Jackets are bringing a goalie prospect to Traverse City. Two of the three are Blue Jacket’s prospects with the third being signed by the Falcons. The Blue Jackets goalies are pretty big with two of the three being over 6’3″ and the other one being 5’11”. If the Blue Jackets play the New York Rangers on the last day they could face one of the goalies they brought last year the 6’8″ rebound machine(at least from what I can remember) Jason Missiaen. The Blue Jackets haven’t won in Traverse City since September 7th 2009 and one of these three can change that stat.
Mathieu Corbeil was supposed to go to Traverse City last year but suffered a wrist injury at training camp with the Halifax Mooseheads and couldn’t. Corbeil played in 25 games with the Mooseheads going 7-15-1 but then during the QMJHL Trading period(they have two-one in the summer and one in the winter) Corbeil was traded from the bottom feeding Mooseheads to the Juggernaut called the Saint John Sea Dogs. With the Sea Dogs Corbeil went 13-1-1 winning four more games in the playoffs including his first ever shutout in his first ever playoff start. Whenever Corbeil is sent back to Saint John he’ll be the team’s number one goaltender. Paul Dainton went 45-61-12 in four years at UMass serving as the team’s captain last year. Dainton signed a amateur tryout with the Falcons playing in five games going 2-2 with a 2.63 GAA and a .912 save percentage. Dainton was signed by the Falcons last month but with Columbus providing them with projected number one Curtis Sanford and top goalie prospect Allen York my guess is Dainton will be spending most of his rookie season in the Windy City with the Express. Dainton is the shortest of the three Jackets goalies standing just 5’11” compared to the 6’6″ Corbeil and the 6’3″ Allen York. Also if there are any comic book fans that read this you’ll like Dainton because of his goalie mask featuring Venom from Spiderman.
Allen York left RPI a year early after last season finishing in the top 10 in every major goaltending stat including as the all time leader in GAA(2.47) after posting a 37-34-8 record with 4 shutouts. When York made his debut with the Falcons he went 3-1 including making 30 saves for his first career shutout in a win over Albany. As I said earlier York will be the Falcon’s backup next season hopefully forming a dominating duo with AHL All Star Curtis Sanford who played in the game with Jacket’s back up Mark Dekanich.
So there you have it folks going along with the first part when I went over the forwards this is the team that will compete for the Jackets in Traverse City. For those of you have asked(I’ve seen it asked a lot on twitter) the Springfield Falcons coaching staff will handle the coaching duties, so it will be Rob Riley, Brad Larsen and the newest member of the Falcons staff Nolan Pratt. New goalie coach Ian Clark will also be up there plus Ken Hitchcock may be there helping out since Aaron Portzline reportedly taking a bigger role including working in Springfield. As Always I have to plug myself, feel free to follow both my accounts either @en4cer45 or @CBJprospects, Ill try and stick to only posting stuff on prospects but sometimes I forget and thank you for reading.
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