Undrafted 4th year right wing Austin Block(19) was traded from Manchester Monarchs, where he signed for 2015/2016, to Orlando Solar Bears for future considerations a little after the half way point of the season.
The somewhat older 27-year old forward skated a career high 63 ECHL games scoring a moderate new best 5 goals and 14 assists.
A most telling stat though was turning a -20 rating with his former team to a +2 with his new one.
The not exactly huge 5’11” 185 lbs. player has seemingly struggled with on-ice accountability as a pro.
It wasn’t this way coming up through his two seasons of American junior hockey in the NAHL with Fairbanks Ice Dogs, where he was just under a point-per-game performer and a hefty +41 before heading off to four years at University Of New Hampshire.
In his senior year he was able to connect with 15 goals in 39 games before heading off to Europe for his rookie campaign.
He started in Finland’s Liiga with HIFK but after stumbling a bit was loaned down to HCK of 2nd tier league Mestis before leaving to finish out the calendar in Sweden’s Allsvenskan for Karlskrona HK.
For his sophomore season he went to Slovak Extraliga signing with HC Banska Bystricha but left after only 21 games scoring a nifty 9 goals and 6 assists before deciding to play pro in North America for a first time.
He finished 2014/2015 with Bakersfield Condors skating 14 games putting in a pair of goals and 6 assists but was a faulty -13.
There’s little doubt this is a player that can step it up quite a bit and be more accountable. This could be an important year.