Predictions and "Grade-ictions" Series

Braydon Coburn

2009/2010 Regular season stats: 5G 14A -6
2010 Playoff stats: 1G 3A -1
Grade: C+

If someone wanted to count how many times Flyers fans uttered the words "Coburn," "idiot" and "stupid" in the same sentence during the regular season this year, it would take about two decades. I felt sorry for Kimmo Timonen most of the time this year because he would be the one who had to bail out Coburn because of his various and frequent defensive stumbles. Coburn went from 36 points in 07/08 and 28 points in 08/09 down to 19 points this past season. He had all the promise in the world after the 2007/2008 season and even influenced me to buy a Braydon Coburn jersey. And truth be told, I was embarrassed to wear it this year...until the playoffs.

Coburn was the player he was two years ago in the postseason this year. He was smart defensively and wasn't getting turned around over and over again like he had been. He was stopping the puck at the point in the offensive zone instead of letting it bounce over his stick and lead to an odd-man rush for the opposition. Coburn signed his contract to be in Philadelphia for the next three seasons due mostly to what he did in the 2010 playoffs. I see Coburn feeding off what he did in April and May and having a nice 2010/11 season.

2010/2011 Predictions: 8G 21A +3