Just wanted to toss out some thoughts on this year's Frost team. I feel like a lot of players really stepped up this year, but I don't feel like this team is as deep or physical as the first two seasons' teams. Let breakdown some standouts and concerns...
Forwards - Our Top six have been solid this year.
Coyne, Curl, Knoll, and Hustler have looked good all year.
Heise has finally played a full season without dealing with any major injuries and has found another level to her game. The scary part is I don't think we seem her peak form yet.
Zumwinkle looks back to form after last years injury and looks like she is on her way to being one of the premiere power forwards in the league.
Pannek has to be juicing, lol. Maybe its something in her beer. She has always been a stud center and just consistent on her D play but this new offensive Pannek is something else.
I don't think there is a real weak spot in the top end but our bottom six has been another story. I feel like Petrie going down really hurt our team depth and forced us to play players that might need a little more seasoning like Upson. It looks like the game is happening too fast for her and her +- seems to back this up. Her team leading -9 on only 7 minutes of ice time per game is alarming. I'm not overly concerned about her for next year as it really seems to take a year for rookies to get comfortable in this league.
I feel like our D grouping are pretty good this year but we are definitely missing the physical play on the backend.
Steck and Coop are becoming twins. They are both composed with the puck in the D zone, strong along the boards and in front of the net and great at the breakout.
Batherson must have been drinking Panneks juiced up beer all offseason. She doesn't even look like the same player. She might not be a physical D but her skating and puck play are tops on the team and her stick play in the d zone reminds me of Jaques last year with how she just picks the puck off players sticks.
Buchbinder is having another consistent year and just does her job and does it well.
Morin seems to be having a rollercoaster year. I've always thought of her as a pure Offensive D that really pushes the puck up the ice but is also a little lacking in the d zone. Unfortunately this still seems true. Her D zone play on breakouts is great but her lack of physical play along the boards and in front of the net really hurts.
Goaltending this year has been probably more up and down then last year but it seems to be coming around just in time for the playoffs. Rooney started the season slow and played most the season relying almost completely on her athletics when in net. The last few weeks she seems to have settled down and spends more time playing positional goaltending again and breaking out the athletics less.
Hensley started the season looking good but as the season went along she started having issues with tracking pucks and controlling rebounds. Hopefully she lockdown again for the playoffs.
In season one I always felt like the frost were the best team in the league even when we were losing (outside our last like 5 games) and I wasn't surprised we won the cup. Last year I didn't think feel like there was a best team in the league and every team had holes in their play. This year I think our downfall is going to be all the bottom 6 talent we lost and with Klee liking to run all lines we really need Upson, Anderson, Giguire, and Hymla to step up their games.