Let me first preface this post by stating that due to Jeff Finger`s salary and cap issues, the AHL seems to be his destination this year. If you remove the salary from the evaluation process, Jeff Finger is an asset to the Maple Leaf defense. Jeff Finger brings an element to his game that is not easy to find and hard to teach, shot blocking.
Three Montreal defenders were in the top 30 of shot blocking defenseman for 2009-10. Lead by Josh Gorges, Roman Hamarlik and Hal Gil these players made life difficult for the opposition team to score. Boston`s Dennis Seidenberg was the leader in shot blocking with 215 spanning 79 regular season games (BkS/GP = 2.72).
Toronto has some quality shot blockers this year with Mike Komisarek and Francois Beauchemin. A lesser know shot blocker is Jeff Finger. Like Komisarek, Jeff Finger played a reduced number of games so you will not see his name in the top 30. Last season, the blocked shots per game played (BkS/GP) statistics had Jeff Finger as the leader at 2.15, followed by Francois Beauchemin at 1.89, Komisarek with 1.82 and Carl Gunnarson at 1.79 block shots per game.
In 2008-09 the league leader was Zbynek Michalek with 271 (BkS/GP = 3.30) blocked shots. Mike Komisarek was fourth blocking 207 (BkS/GP = 3.14) and Jeff Finger was eighteenth with 158 (BkS/GP = 2.39). Beauchemin was injured and played a very small number of games.
If Schenn can learn from Komisarek and Beauchemin, he could easily start to solidify his role as a shut down defenseman in the NHL. Carl Gunnarson has a head start over Schenn in shot blocking. Komisarek had lower numbers in shot blocking last year and Leaf fans can hope to see Komisarek return to higher shot blocking totals from previous years. The Maple Leafs defense have the players that can perform well in the shot blocking and need to execute better once the season starts. Having three top 30 shot blockers did wonders for Montreal and if Toronto could get four defensemen in the top 30, that could be magical.
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