The versatility of forward Travis Granbois, who was acquired from Kalamazoo in an off-season trade, should help ease the recent loss of defenseman Jason Lepine (torn ACL). Lepine, who was emerging as one of the team’s top D men, will be out indefinitely.
“It really handcuffs us right now, but having Travis Granbois being able to fill in on the back end is a big help,” said Thunder coach Jarrod Skalde. “Travis has been doing everything for us.
“He’s really played every situation from defense to center, he’s played the wing, he kills penalties and he plays on our power play. He’s such a valuable guy to our team.”
Granbois has two of the team’s three game-winning goals and he has scored at least one point in each of the first four games. Defenseman Riccardo Rigamonti has been another unsung standout with an overall plus/minus rating of plus-8.
Bloomington’s already-potent offense will receive a boost tonight when Leo Thomas makes his season debut. The speedy Thomas, who was the team’s second-leading scorer last season, will start on the third line alongside Adam Tomkow and Brett Holmberg.
“I want to ease Leo in,” Skalde said. “With Tomkow and Holmberg, I don’t want to say it’s a traditional banger, mucker third line. I want to have three lines that can skate.
“I felt confident putting our third line out against some of the other team’s top lines last weekend. If we can establish that we don’t have to get into matching lines necessarily every night. I think that says a lot about the quality of players we have up front.”
Great read! Gives some insight as to what in the world we are going to do after losing a Dman and adding a forward. Granbois’ versatility helps, but I’m sure coach is on the hunt for some full time defensive help.
Losing Aldoff from a team that was weak densively was a concern, but Granbois’ versatality made that trade a little safer. With the injuries to the Dmen at this early stage Granbois’ ability to fill in on the blueline is big. Gotta give some credit to McBurney and Skalde for trading for a guy who allows some flexibility within the roster….
Easing Leo in would be wise. Remember he came in late last year as well, and if I remember correctly he was eased in and stayed healthy because of it. Leo plays a physical game and it’ll take some time to get back into playing shape and not get injured doing so.
Keep up the good work with the blog Mr Hamm. It helps knowing the ins and outs of a teams season as it goes along.
Another Great Blog entry sir. I love this new feature the Pantagraph has