Upper Dublin junior Brian Markman has established himself as an elite defenseman in the SHSHL. A complete package of defensive skill, puckhandling ability and offensive firepower, Markman has tried to model his game after a future NHL Hall of Famer.
It just may not be a player you’d expect.
“I always watched Mark Recchi,” Markman said of the Boston Bruins right winger, who played all or parts of 10 of his 21 NHL seasons with the Philadelphia Flyers. “Recchi played defense on the power play and on offense he always moved the puck well.”
A forward on his club team, Markman anchors the blue line for the Cardinals. But he’s hardly a fish out of water playing in his own zone. In fact, Markman said he believes his time playing offense greatly contributes to his success on the other end of the rink.
“I think it helps you predict what they want to do when you’re going one-on-one with someone or when you’re trying to defend,” he said. “You know where they want to be and you know where you want to be to stop it. It gives you a little better insight to stop what they want to do.”
His offensive know-how has been pretty helpful on the scoresheets as well. Markman has a team-high 15 goals (2 power play goals) as well as nine assists on the season for 24 points, also tops on the team.
His contributions on both ends of the ice have been invaluable for a Cardinal squad that has been injected with a healthy dose of youth this season.
“We picked up a lot of freshmen this year,” Upper Dublin coach Chris Seamens said of his team, which enters the week at 4-3-1 overall (2-2-1 league). “We’ve got a lot of younger guys and guys with not as much club experience. We try to mix it up, keep … juniors and seniors with younger kids to help them along.”
That’s a role Markman has accepted, though Seamens admits it can be difficult … not so much for Markman, but for his defensive partners.
“Brian is a talented kid,” Seamens said. “He’s able to take the puck and take it end-to-end. He’s a heck of a player. The younger kids sometimes have trouble trying to keep up with him.”
Markman said he prefers to lead by example.
“The senior players, guys like Alex Faust and Jake Long, they always take initiative in making sure everyone is ready and ready to have fun,” he said. “I just go out and do what I do on the ice. In the locker room, I’m more of the quiet player, I just do my thing on the ice.”
And what he does is better than most who lace up the skates against him. Seamens said he’s seen a dramatic improvement in Markman’s game over the past five years.
“I think it’s been my skating and my vision that have improved the most,” Markman said. “The vision came from having some good teammates around me over the years who kind of opened my eyes to some things. I think I see the ice better now. And I skate a lot better.
“The vision part came naturally, the skating part was something I really had to work at. It wasn’t always a strength of mine.”
The Cardinals have three wins and a tie against division-leading Hatboro-Horsham in their last four games. They will return from a two-week layoff for their rematch against neighborhood rival Wissahickon on Dec. 10.
With a team that appears to be coming together at the right time, the Cardinals hope their fortunes will change in their rematch against the Trojans, who rolled to a 10-2 victory in a late-October tilt.
“I want the guys to get better every game,” Seamens said. “We want them to get better game to game and jell as a team.”
“The younger guys are playing well,” Markman said. “They’re not playing afraid and they’re contributing, scoring goals. The younger kids are progressively getting much, much better, and their skills are improving drastically.”
Which means that these Cardinals could be flying toward the top of the American Division as the season progresses.
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