Pre-Season GM#2: OTT @ TOR (9/22/10 @ 7pm ET)

That was about bound to happen. In a few years, Cowen, Wiercioch, Karlsson are gonna be studs.

hmm some fatigue carried over from last night. Karlsson is dynamite on the offensive end, but I wasn't impressed with him on the 4th goal for the leafs...he's gotta tie up the guy in front. Hope he learns some more.

Cowen I thought was pretty good today. He even got an assist! Weircioch was up and down, but like marakh said, him and karlsson QBing the powerplay was tantilizing. Butler and Wick and Hoffman got it going in the 3rd period, but were mostly absent the rest of the way. Of course, can't blame them with the gargantuan number of penalties we seem to be taking.

Sens defi lost the physical battle today (slightly), but they played well and showed some great poise as well. At least it wasn't a total whipping. Besides, its no fun to be undefeated in the preseason.

FInally, Elliott was shaky at first, but the only questionable goal was Kessel's. The rest weren't his fault and can't say that another goalie would have definitely stopped them. Hope he bounces back. and that was a dirty hit on shannon. It's legal, but still vicious

Oh and nice to see Elliott bounce back after the shaky start.

looking at the positives again, I really hope Winchester and Foligno can keep up this play. They've been fantastic, and winch has been great on faceoffs.

As for Wick, Butler, Z. Smith, Cowen, Hoffman, Hale, Lee, and anyone else I missed playing back to back, I think I'm gonna reserve my judgment now till the end of the week. These guys just got their feet wet, and that too on back to back nights. I think we'll get a much better indication by Sunday as to how these guys (along with Weircioch) are doing. Some veteran presence can help them out too.

I'm just glad hockey's back

SpezDispenser wrote:Oh and nice to see Elliott bounce back after the shaky start.

yes i thought he got better as the game went on. at least we're not in MTL. carey price got boohed out of the game last night. it's going to be a long season over there....

Is "fiasco" too strong a word? Absolutely not! Time to blow this Dung up!!!

Two more sleeps till I go to my first game of the season.

Edit: It's more like 5 or 6 "sleeps" with the 7 week old waking up 2 or 3 times a night. Speaking of which: it's time for another sleep.

As bad as this sounds the Shannon injury makes life temporarily easier for Murray as he doesn't have to bury him in the minors just yet. For now, he can place him on the LTIR and not have his contract count against the cap. This also opens the door for Smith to play in his spot allowing Winchester to start the season centering the 4th line.

winchester, smith, and foligno are the only forwards standing out.

butler, wick, hoffman, are not ready.

was impressed with wiercoch for his puck handling, but he is easy to knock off the puck.

cowen needs to get a mean streak. i can never understand a guy that size and weight that is reluctant to play tough.

its hard to say but none of our hyped prospects have wowed so far.

smith and winchester should start the season.

Kovalfie wrote:As bad as this sounds the Shannon injury makes life temporarily easier for Murray as he doesn't have to bury him in the minors just yet. For now, he can place him on the LTIR and not have his contract count against the cap. This also opens the door for Smith to play in his spot allowing Winchester to start the season centering the 4th line.

LTIR and cap relief don't go hand in hand. He would only (potentially) get relief for the amount he's over the cap. They are tight up against it, but they'd have to pay someone else to replace Shannon, and then spend over the cap in order to get relief to bring us back to the cap.

The refs should just change their black stripes to blue. Just to confirm what everybody already knows.

I can't believe how many penalties were called against us in those two games. What was it...something like 18 penalties in the 2 games? Cuss that, we just want to see our prospects, not a friggin PK clinic.

Hoffman, Wick and Butler will need to show what they have in Bingo for the first 20 or so games and battle for the first call up. None are ready for the NHL, this wasn't even the NHL and they didn't look up to the task. Butler and Hoffman might be closer than Wick though, he's got talent, but he's got a long way to go to put it all together.

Hale is annoying. I've seen these guys come and go over the years. There's nothing that differentiates Hale's game from Gryba or even Lee. He takes a ton of penalties as well. I can't imagine he wins the spot over Lee or Cowen or Gryba.

Hopefully we can all agree now that Cowen is a stud defender after last night. Besides Winchester, Smith and Foligno, Cowen is the closest IMO to making an NHL impact.

Wiercioch is a ways away, but man is this guy ever slick. Great player.

Lessard! That guy makes me laugh so much, he's great comic relief in a game where we were getting owned and penalized for everything. Man, the coolest thing Komisarek has ever done in his career was throwing him into Pierre McGuire. Classic! And his fumbling and falling on the ice was also very amusing. That guy is comic gold!

He should have gotten penalized for falling like that...call it...delay of game. The refs called everything else, might as well go for it.

I think Lessard was trying a little too hard to make an impact. And I digress, Komisarek didn't throw him into pierre, just dodged it. Self-inflicting wounds for Lessard, and he will most likely be part of the first cuts when they do come.

and I agree, Cowen has looked the most consistent and poised in the past two games out of the prospects. flashes of brilliance from HoffButWick but clearly adjusting still. We still haven't seen Gryba in action though

I don't know, I think Bass is proving some strong defensive acumen, and willingness to get physical, he wants to get physical.

And I'm not just saying that so that my name means something again, and so that people stop thinking that I'm really into Techno.

But after these two games, and knowing there are only 6 games left, who, if anybody, would you cut?

I really hope these 2 games aren't a sign that refs will be giving out a huge amount of powerplays to our opponents again.