Charbonneau had a steady tournament for Team Daigle on the backend, mainly standing out due to his strong defensive play. My notes on him largely consisted of him making stops in transition, displaying good gap control and timely poke checks to thwart 1v1 attacking situations and deny zone entries as well. He also demonstrated impressive anticipatory habits while defending in-zone to jump passing lanes along the boards, breaking cycle plays as a consequence and making a quick up to initiate the breakout. He made a few strong plays heading back for pucks on DZ retrievals, demonstrating good scanning habits and shrugging off checks that helped facilitate quick exits from the zone.

Charbonneau showed throughout this event that he has all the makings of a strong transitional defender on both ends of the ice. On the defensive side of things, he was stepping up and making aggressive plays at the defensive blueline in order to deny entries and force dump-ins. Even when opposing forwards were able to gain the zone with controlled possession, Charbonneau was good at keeping them to the outside and utilizing his reach and active stick to check any hard drives to the net. Offensively he was jumping into the rush whenever the opportunity presented itself, often acting as the trailer option up high and getting off shots from the high slot as a consequence. Within the offensive zone I thought he was managing his pinches below the hashmarks and limiting his aggressiveness to make the right play the majority of the time.

I liked Charbonneau’s aggressive style of play in this one as he was able to pick his spots and make a positive impact in all three zones. He was timing his step ups quite well while defending in one on one situations, catching opposing forwards off guard at their most vulnerable and getting them off the puck. Even when they were able to get a step on him, he could use his reach to poke the puck loose and nullify a scoring opportunity. He did a great job keeping pucks alive in the offensive zone, often stepping down below the hashmarks and getting it back down to his forwards to reinitiate the cycle game.