Sloppy preseason hockey, but fun to watch.
I think anyone on either side of this who is trying to make too much of what they saw is wrong. There has been one practice really. I am sure this team is still doing quite a lot of 'Gulutzan' hockey, so I don't think we can necessarily gleam too much of actual systems play here. For instance, the prime opportunities against that were given up throughout the night even though the Flames controlled most of the play, the bunch of goals against in a short amount of time, and the constant shot selection at net without making the goalie move as much - these were all Gulutzan gripes from me.
This is what the preseason is for. Peters will slowly but surely implement his system, and those issues will hopefully disappear. First preseason game - who can really expect it all to be completely different right away, right?
At any rate my thoughts on some players:
Czarnik seemed to be the most impactful of the additions. Tonnes of speed and skill. Now I really know why 22 teams made overtures to him. The way he found some players with his passing, and caused confusion on the Bruins with his speed was really nice to see.
Lindholm and Neal were both 'good' for the most part, but you can just see that the chemistry is just not there yet. I liked what I saw out of them, however.
Feel bad for Gillies with those 3 goals against in quick succession. Good on him to recover for the rest of the night. There were some grade A chances against after those 3 goals, and he managed to stop them all.
I will not lie - I do worry that Ryan is going to be overused by Peters. Shootout selection with him rather than Monahan was a glaring one. Not sure what to make out of it because Peters started with Tkachuk who is a no-brainer on the shootout... if Tkachuk wasn't there, I would have said it was a reward for good play for some players... I guess we will have to keep an eye on that and see what happens.
I hope that someone like Foo or Mangiapane steps up this season and pushes out Hathaway. Bennett and Jankowski are going to have a great season this year.
Overall - This team has a lot of skill and a lot of speed. If Peters can wrap all of that up into a system that utilizes them effectively, there is no telling how far this team can go. This is a very deep and skilled squad.
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