Re: Official Boston University 2009-2010 Pre-season thread - Let the banners rise!
FWIW, the 2007-08 squad only had 7 Ds and Smolinsky began practicing at defense as well as forward around December. Gryba was injured in the 2nd QF against Lowell, so Smolinsky was the only sub available for the final two games.
BU will almost certainly be without Warsofsky for the Jan. 2 game vs. UMass b/c of the WJCs in Saskatchewan. Expect a forward to get some practice time on defense and I'd think there would be a few volunteers looking to become more versatile and have a shot at some ice time.
Didn't they have eight?
Strait-Gilroy
Cohen-Shattenkirk
McGoff-Gryba
Kielt-Monoghan
Of course, McGoff and Monoghan were F/Ds, and I don't know if Parker trusted Monoghan at that point in the season.
Yes while that team may have had 8 defensemen, they only had about 5 that were D1 caliber. It would have been foolish for any Forward who wasn't getting ice time to not give D a shot to see if they would be able to crack the lineup as a defender.
This year's situation is much different as the team has four returning D who are all but guaranteed to start every game unless there is an injury or a random one game benching, or the one game Warsofsky will miss over break, and are all not just serviceable D1 players but also NHL draft picks, then you have Nicastro (NHL draft pick), Escobedo (likely NHL draft pick, who was too young to be taken in the previous draft) and Rosen (an older recruit who has spent three seasons in the USHL or EJHL). No forward who isn't getting ice time is going to be able to just switch over to D and have a realistic shot at cracking the top 6, unlike 07-08.
Also the team only has 15 Forwards, so while only 12 dress at any one time Parker almost always starts the season with some sort of rotation at 3rd or 4th line wing. So there would probably only be 1 or 2 forwards not getting game time, at least to start, and the last forward on the depth chart would probably do very little to add usable depth at D.
Should the number dwindle to 6 for any reason I would give one or two forwards the one week crash course at D, in case the number were to shrink again. Because in the event they are thrown into a meaningful game, like Smolinksy in the Quarterfinals, they will only really be playing about 3 shifts a period to give the other 5 rest, and it shouldn't take much more than 7 days of practices to be ready to play about 10 shifts of D.
In 42 days, we will raise many banners