Senators in the WHL Playoffs

Again, please note that I am about the last person qualified to scout hockey players.

So I was at last night’s terrible Thunderbirds effort against the Chiefs. I was expecting a lot given their first home playoff game of the year and coming off a game 2 win at Spokane to even the series, I thought the Birds would be fired up to take a series lead. Instead, I got one of the worst sporting performances I have ever seen live.

JO’B specific: His puck-handling skills, (receiving and sending passes, dekeing, steering away from defenders, etc) seem to be at a level clearly beyond that of his WHL brethren. His teammates on the other hand… Ugh. JO’B flashed some speed at times, but what really soured my on the night was how often he just seemed to be skating around, there’d be a fight for the puck on the boards and OBrien would casually skate over to it. He would more often than not end up with the puck out of the scrum, so I cannot fault him too much, but where’s the hustle to get over there?

I am loathe to make a snap judgment on him based on this one game since the entire Seattle team looked like they were mailing it in. JOB certainly didn’t do anything to reverse that though.

He played both sides of special teams and its worth noting that his -2 rating came from a pair of SHG goals allowed while he was on the PP. Neither of which were anything close to his fault or even presented him with any chance to prevent them as both came on Spokane breakaways as a result of some seriously lousy blue line play from the defensemen including an abysmal effort from Thomas Hickey who personally was responsible for at least one goal, and probably two.

JOBs shot seemed decent though he did whiff on his one attempt at a one-timer. No Dany Heatley is he. He did a fair job of both setting up in front of the net on PPs and moving out to the blue line to move the puck around when needed.

Overall, and keep in mind this may be highly colored by the total team effort from last night, but JOB seems like a player who is bored at the WHL level. He obviously has specific skills that are at least AHL-level, but what worries me is that for someone who should be making the pro jump, I feel he should be a presence on the ice at the WHL-level and the last couple times I have watched him, he hasn’t been. And it’s the playoffs, man! I don’t see him making mistakes, but I don’t see him dominating either. I’m left with giving him AHL-passable grades on his skills, but question marks on his makeup.