Link: Sabre Rattling.
Dmitri Kalinin will make his debut for us tonight. Ryan Miller will get the start. I'm interested to see how Lindy Ruff will juggle his defense pairs now. Also, I wonder who will sit, Campbell or Fitzie, both have played better than I would have expected. But, got forbid Campbell gets caught on the ice against Mario....that's the stuff of nightmares. I expect these two teams to put on a show for the nation-wide audience.
One of the things I've been really pleased with is how quickly Danny Briere has been to attack defenders at the blue line. No dekes, or dips... just straight-ahead trying to split the D and either break in on the goalie or draw the penalty. It was one of the few bright spots during the Sens game on saturday. He drew a couple of penalties that way. If we'd cashed even one of those first period PP's, it might have been a completely different game.
Now, if he could just get Tim Connolly to do that, we'd have ourselves a very interesting little hockey club. Danny "No Fear" Briere, he wears that "C" really well, I think.
Thomas Vanek's decision making will need to improve. Now, I'll preface that comment by saying that it's a helluva lot better than I thought it would be at this point, but, if he's going to play top-line minutes every night he needs to make top line decisions every shift. There were a couple of very ill-advised passes in the game on saturday. I'd be ecstatic to see those eliminated. I have littel doubt that Lindy Ruff will make him aware of it. It's a concern and something to watch for as the season progresses.
Ta,
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