My View On End-of-Year Awards
Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:12 am
Since BG got let out of the CCHA award races, I wanted to give my award-by-award selection for BG's award winners:
Coach of the Year: Todd Reirden. Just about every player you talk to will tell you how much they enjoyed having Stretch on the bench this year. He's connected with a lot of the younger players extremely well and seems to be able to connect with the players better than the more stubborn Paluch. My only concern is about when, not if, Reirden might be heading out of town for his own team to coach.
MVP: Derek Whitmore: We would not have won half of our games this year without Whitty. There was a lot of talk about how Whitmore would play without Matsy on the ice with him. He proved that he is a true leader and should be playing in The A next year.
Rookie of the Year: The smart money might tell you to go with #13, but I'm going with Eno. Losing one of the top goalie recruits a mere few weeks before school was to begin could have left us with 1 goalie with game experience. Enter stage left, Nick Eno. Was he a great goalie this year? Not quite. He still had a .905 save % and around a 2.7 GAA. In a season where we played teams like Miami, Notre Dame, and Michigan these numbers aren't terrible at all. As long as he continues to work hard in the off-season on his rebounds and mental game, he could be mentioned in the award races for next year.
Best Offensive Defenseman: Kevin Schmidt. I don't think this one was even close. Schmitty averaged .64 PPG from the blueline, good enough for 5th in the CCHA.
Best Defensive Defensemen: Kyle Page. Ended his career on a sour note (broken wrist) but was pivotal to the Falcons making their late push to the first CCHA Playoff Series win since 2001. The game after Page broke his wrist the Falcons gave up 6 goals and seemed to be off-track on D the last 3 games in his departure.
Best Defensive Forward: This is pretty much a toss-up, but I'm going to give it to Petruska. He's not afraid to sacrifice for the puck and is great skating backwards when manned up on the puckholder. Honorable mention goes to Kantola. However, he'll need to learn how to control his body because the CCHA officials will be keeping a very close eye on him next year.
Thoughts? Opinions? Now's the time to celebrate our achievements because it's a long off-season (6 months).
Coach of the Year: Todd Reirden. Just about every player you talk to will tell you how much they enjoyed having Stretch on the bench this year. He's connected with a lot of the younger players extremely well and seems to be able to connect with the players better than the more stubborn Paluch. My only concern is about when, not if, Reirden might be heading out of town for his own team to coach.
MVP: Derek Whitmore: We would not have won half of our games this year without Whitty. There was a lot of talk about how Whitmore would play without Matsy on the ice with him. He proved that he is a true leader and should be playing in The A next year.
Rookie of the Year: The smart money might tell you to go with #13, but I'm going with Eno. Losing one of the top goalie recruits a mere few weeks before school was to begin could have left us with 1 goalie with game experience. Enter stage left, Nick Eno. Was he a great goalie this year? Not quite. He still had a .905 save % and around a 2.7 GAA. In a season where we played teams like Miami, Notre Dame, and Michigan these numbers aren't terrible at all. As long as he continues to work hard in the off-season on his rebounds and mental game, he could be mentioned in the award races for next year.
Best Offensive Defenseman: Kevin Schmidt. I don't think this one was even close. Schmitty averaged .64 PPG from the blueline, good enough for 5th in the CCHA.
Best Defensive Defensemen: Kyle Page. Ended his career on a sour note (broken wrist) but was pivotal to the Falcons making their late push to the first CCHA Playoff Series win since 2001. The game after Page broke his wrist the Falcons gave up 6 goals and seemed to be off-track on D the last 3 games in his departure.
Best Defensive Forward: This is pretty much a toss-up, but I'm going to give it to Petruska. He's not afraid to sacrifice for the puck and is great skating backwards when manned up on the puckholder. Honorable mention goes to Kantola. However, he'll need to learn how to control his body because the CCHA officials will be keeping a very close eye on him next year.
Thoughts? Opinions? Now's the time to celebrate our achievements because it's a long off-season (6 months).