Kyle Brodziak

I don't think there's any question Brodziak had, on average, a good year, and although I couldn't prove it, I think he just kept getting better as the year went on. He had 4 G 9PTS +6 in his last 10 games and he just looked good.

According the information compiled by LT, Brodziak looks to be a big part of the future here in Edmonton, and I don't see any reason he's wrong. The only issue is that which he shares with Glencross - not a lot of at bats to judge him by.

Now there's also been some talk (myself included) about Brodziak stepping in and helping to fill the heavy lifting roles vacated when Reasoner and Stoll left town. Tall task indeed.

There's nothing really obvious that jumps out about Brodziak's stats. Firstly, we know he's playing pretty low level competition which makes sense considering his number of at bats, and we also know he didn't play with anyone particularly special. He also, on average, didn't really shut down the opposition at all - he had the worst GAON/60 on the entire team, which to me brings some doubt as to his 'heavy lifting' ability.

His G/60 was pretty damn impressive - 2nd on the team. But even that wasn't enough to come close to outscoring the opposition on average - I mean, his +/- wasn't bad, but if he had been getting, say, Sean Horcoff like ice time, it would have exploded.

Look, I'm not saying Kyle Brodziak isn't a good hockey player - or even that he won't be able to do the heavy lifting - but I think MacT needs to think long and hard about throwing Brodziak into the deep end right away. He still needs some swimming lessons.

Projection: 4th liner
Key Stat: 2nd overall in G/60, last in GAON/60