Gruber struggling

[TheFlash 317]

Hans Gruber had a decent start to the season. Despite limited playing time, he was putting up points at a decent clip. But in the past ten to fifteen games, Gruber has hit a bit of a wall. He scored a goal yesterday, his seventh of the season, but other than that has had trouble putting up points. His total for the year sits at 18 in 40 games. As a rookie on a pretty established team, the point totals aren't all that bad. As Gruber progresses and earns more TPE, those totals will come up. But it's the plus/minus that is a bit troubling. Gruber as a team leading (losing?) -20 in forty games. This is clearly not good, and while plus/minus doesn't always tell the whole story, it doesn't bode well for the rookie. Personally, I think it has more to do with his line of younger, lower TPE players going up against much higher TPE lines and getting taken advantage of. Regardless, he needs to take advantage of the icetime he gets, even if it's minimal. He has the world juniors coming up, maybe he will rediscover his offensive game when he hits the ice for Team Europe.