Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
In the last preseason game:
· Gaudreau, Lindholm, and Dube were the only Flames forwards with +20 mins of ice time.
· Backlund, Czarnik, Bennett, Mangiapane, Frolik with +14 mins.
· Jankowski, Tkachuk, Ryan with +12 mins.
That's 8/9 players with +14 mins, and 11/12 players with +12 mins.
In the prior game in SJ:
· No players with more than 19 mins of ice time.
· Backlund, Neal, Lindholm, Monahan, Frolik all with +15 mins.
· Ryan, Tkachuk, Gaudreau, Czarnik with +13 mins.
· Dude and Jankowski with +12 mins, and Bennet registered the lowest ice time with 11:01.
That's 9/9 players with +13 mins, and 11/12. players with +12 mins.
Yes, these are just preseason games, but with how the coaches have structured the lines I am betting that the difference in ice times will be fairly small in the top-nine, and with a lot of that getting made up by special teams assignments. Neal will likely be a fixture on the powerplay, and I also think he is set to get a lot of offensive zone starts with lines 2 and 4 taking most of the defensive zone draws.
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I don't think a whole lot can be drawn from preseason ice times. I mean over the course of a season, Neal is the kind of player who tends to need plenty of ice time to get hot. Watching Vegas he'd be invisible for a lot of those minutes, then pot a couple.
Plus I think he'd benefit from Tkachuk and Backlund, while Bennett and Jankowski could use Frolik. I think Czarnik, while impressive in the preseason, still needs to be bottom six to start.