Phil Strasmore's Rookie Experience

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Phil Strasmore's Rookie Experience

 

Strasmore was taken 3rd overall by the exuberant Calgary Wranglers GM. He worked hard to move up in the draft so he could specifically secure Strasmore. This type of faith instils confidence, but with that also comes immense pressure. Today, we will be looking at Strasmore's rookie campaign (for the regular season), and make predictions on how he will fair in the playoffs, which are expected to start tonight. The Wranglers will sit out the first round after securing the Devon Marlow-Marta Trophy for the first time in 13 seasons.

 

The gritty defenseman was never going to have a stellar Rookie Season. The man, who's older than all the other rookies, is technically still recovering from his career-ending football injury. We expected a bit of a learning curve and so there's no surprise that no one will be talking about him for Rookie of the Year. However, he did steadily improve over the season and he is definitely putting in the work to make it. Only 4 others have more practice hours than he has at the moment, and that gap, he intends to narrow. Now let us assess his performance this season.

 

Strasmore scored just twice this season (once on the powerplay) but he helped out 21 times. We knew he wasn't going to contribute much offensively, so we are focusing on his defensive performance. He was a +27, which was higher than their current star defender, Erlantz Jokinen. This bodes well for the rookie, as it shows his team he is committed to playing a sound defensive game. He also got his body in the way of a lot of pucks and blocked 116 shots, which was third most on the team. Once again we are seeing some key areas of defense that he is performing quite well in. 

 

Now we want to focus on hitting separately. His 165 hits is very far from outstanding, but conversely, he only received 26 hits, making his Hits to Hits Taken ratio one of the best in the league at 6.3:1 What does that actually tell us though? It means that he creates over 6 turnover chances for every giveaway chance he gives up. This is such an under-utilized stat in the VHL (and one player agent Phil Knight will not let up about), and it once again goes to show that Strasmore is shaping up to be a stay at home defenseman who's very responsible in his own zone. 

 

If Strasmore continues down this same path, it is not out of reach of the possibility that he will will Defensive Defenseman of the year before his career is over. He has been adapted to the just sport and a new style of play and so far doing a bang-up job.

 

The playoffs are a different beast all together, so we can't really make any real statements, however, we will stay that given his poise, the playoffs are were he could really turn out to shine. 

 

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