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erikvm · 07-18-2022, 06:15 PM

Bear Ups and Bear Downs

This deep dive will be a dive into the positional strengths and weaknesses of the Great Falls Grizzlies. The grizzlies finished low in the standings last year, and they hope their draft picks can help them climb to the top of the standings in a quick turnaround, but is this year the year?

Strengths:

Winger Depth: When I look at this team’s roster, the first thing that jumps to mind is that most of their high tpe players are wingers. What this does for now and for the future is that they will have reliable goal scoring. Messer/Calavera and eventually McGinnis will definitely be a good core to build around on each side of the ice.

Goaltending: Alvin Towne has the potential to be the best goalie in the SMJHL soon, and his last season definitely reflected his potential. The Grizzlies should be able to ride Towne for most of their games this season, and he should make up for the inactive backup.

Young Core: As I touched on in the winger depth section, this team could be special next year. If Laviathan, McGinnis and Newland all hit sophomore cap and Towne, Calavera and Messer are all capped out as well, this team could win a lot of games next year, and the year after if there is a solid replacement for Messer.

Weaknesses:

Center Depth: This is a no brainer currently, the best center on this team was just drafted. Like seriously he has the highest TPE out of all centers already, which is a great sign for the future but not currently, because besides him, I don’t see any usable centers to help the other lines out, next year’s draft should have a HIGH focus on center depth.

Defense: I touched on the center depth, but defense might even be a bigger need for the Grizzlies. With one defenseman over 200 tpe, they will need to do more with less. Now as I have mentioned, this is a rebuilding year, but it’s hard to look towards the future with a limited defenseman pool such as this, they did take Neal Newland this draft, and he is definitely going to have to carry his weight on the top pairing already.

Inactives: I’m sure this is the case with a lot of teams, but there are plenty of inactives on this team taking up a lot of minutes.Last season Ambrosia Snow led the team in points and they were inactive the whole season! There is a lot more to look forward to this season, but Awcrapihavethepuck, recently drafted center, is also looking to be an inactive. It’s hard, but the team will have to try to find active players in the draft pool.

Conclusion:

This team should be a bubble playoff team next season, and their chance for a cup probably comes the season after, if the draft picks hit, they fix up their center and defenseman depth, because honestly if this team drafts a winger at all in the next couple drafts I will be highly concerned. They will not be a playoff team this season, just purely based on the tpe of players on the team, but I do like their future, and they had a very very solid draft this year if everyone sticks around.

**leafs1997** · 07-19-2022, 06:35 PM

@erikvm APPROVED! +5 TPE

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