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Dallas Stars Season Grades: Karlis Skrastins

We continue our series of grading each player that played a role for the Stars in the 2009-2010 season. At the end of each feature, you get to select the overall grade for each individual player. This is something we'll continue doing each season, and is a tool we can use to determine a player's progress year by year.


Karlis Skrastins

#37 / Defenseman / Dallas Stars

6-1

210

Jul 09, 1974


 

GPGAP+/-PIMPPGSHGGWGSOGTOI/G
79 2 11 13 -4 24 0 0 1 58 19:34

All stats used in this post courtesy of BehindTheNet.ca and NHL.com

 

Key Stat: Skrastins will never be confused with an offensive threat, but for one night on December 19th of 2009 he played the part scoring twice and assisting on a third to help the Stars in a win over Detroit. Of the 29 career goals he has, seven of them are good for game winners.

The Good: Signed as a free agent in the summer of 2009, Stars fans and managment expected a shot blocking expert and Karlis certainly didn't disapoint placing second on the team with 156 blocked shots. He also took care of the puck only having 21 giveaways during the season. While he's not known as being one of the more physical defensemen on the team he actually upped the amount of hits he had in a season from 39 with Florida the year before to 52 with the Stars.

The Bad: Karlis seemed to be having a pretty solid season for the Stars until the olympic break where he was leaned heavily on as one of two NHlers on the Latvian team. When he returned to Dallas, he seemed like a player who had been mentally and physically beaten down. He was caught out of position more often and beaten to the net by opponents more often than in the first half of the season.

The Bottom Line: Take away the downward trend in play he had near the end of the season - which admittedly a lot of Dallas Stars players suffered from - and 2009-10 was a pretty good year for Karlis and he did exactly what the Stars expected him to do bringing him in. Skrastins is a shot blocking workhorse and as long as he keeps committing to that aspect of the game, he will see plenty of ice time with the Stars in 10-11. The notion is that players who like to block shots also like to hit alot, but that part of the game isn't in Karlis' nature - which is acceptable as well so long as long as he has a physical partner to do that for him.

The Vote: On a scale of 1-10 (10 being the best) give Skrastins a rating based on his performance relative to his potential and your expectations for the season - if he had the best year you could have imagined him having, give him a 10; if he more or less played as you expected he would, give him a 5 or a 6; if he had the worst year you could have imagined him having, give him a 1.

Poll
What would you rate Karlis Skrastins' 2009-10 season?
10
3 votes
9
0 votes
8
21 votes
7
50 votes
6
51 votes
5
22 votes
4
5 votes
3
5 votes
2
2 votes
1
2 votes

161 votes | Poll has closed

0 recs  |  Comment 8 comments |

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Skrastins was bad

for most of the year IMO. Yeah he took a big drop after the Olympics, but he had not been playing well before then either. I think he had a nice couple weeks to start the season but went downhill after that. If they could find any way to unload him it would be a good idea. I really think hes done.

by TimAH on Jul 17, 2010 1:14 PM CDT reply actions  

7

Skrastins did what we brought him to do, and that’s what matters. He helped a lot more than people give him credit for. I don’t know how badly the Stars might have finished had it not been for Karlis Skrastins.

Here's to all us girls who love hockey...and the men who play it.

by Brad_Richards_Rocks on Jul 17, 2010 2:02 PM CDT reply actions  

About D Men

They say the less you see a Dman mentioned the better job he does… Without looking hard, you dont see KS mentioned often. He did a good job!

by Alexander C on Jul 18, 2010 12:23 AM CDT reply actions  

I think that was because he played with Daley for alot of time last season.

by chris1989 on Jul 18, 2010 9:20 PM CDT up reply actions  

I am going to continue skewing my votes

For the defensemen.

I want to give him a higher grade, because it’s not his fault this defense sucks, but anyone connected to the blue line I can’t see how we give more than a 5 to. It’s the effing death knell of this team.

by Brad Gardner on Jul 19, 2010 2:07 AM CDT reply actions  

But...

…it’s supposed to be a grade vs. expectations, and I didn’t have very high ones for Mr. Skrastins. Hell, I didn’t even know who he was and I don’t think anyone could say he gave anything less than his all every night. Unfortunately, he seemed to run out of energy by the end of the year.

by Sugaa on Jul 19, 2010 8:18 AM CDT up reply actions  

After Olympics he starter to make mistakes.

I gave 6. Perhaps he doesn’t deserve it, but he just wasn’t that solid.

by Henri Muroke on Jul 19, 2010 2:32 PM CDT reply actions  

He's a solid player

Skrastins is a solid 2nd line D-man. He wasn’t brought in to be on the top line plus he played for Crawford before.
He’ll always give 100% but the Olympics killed him and others as well. He’ll be fine next year. He’s the one D-man you can always rely on.
He’s a great shot blocker and does the role he’s expected to do. He doesn’t have a lot of take aways. He was paired with Daley, who led the team in take aways, so that brought him down a little. TRADE DALEY!!!

by Sonny83065 on Jul 25, 2010 8:38 AM CDT reply actions  

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