For me, the hockey season officially starts tomorrow night at 7:30pm CST when the puck drops in St. Louis with the Predators taking on former teammates Paul Kariya and Chris Mason of the Blues. I do have to liken my excitement to that of the anticipation of Christmas morning, because, well, I've waited ALL SUMMER LONG for this day. My giddiness kicks it into overdrive as the Predators Home Opener against the Dallas Stars Saturday night at 7:00pm CST will officially signal the start of Hockey Nights in Nashville.
While I do realize that I never got around to breaking down the forwards and the goalies, I also forgot how much work it truly is to go through EVERY FREAKING PLAYER on the roster. I'll try to be better at keeping my word from now on.
To sum things up somewhat quickly, we added rookies Patric Hornqvist, Ryan Jones and Joel Ward to the active roster. Richie Rich Peverley gets his first full season in the NHL and we picked up tough guy Nick Tarnasky from Tampa Bay to "protect Tootoo" as stated by Coach Barry Trotz. The rest of the offensive lineup remained the same. The biggest question is how the lines will fall into place and I have a feeling it might take a while to find that perfect chemistry. I am looking forward to the "Family Line" of Dumont-Arnott-Hornqvist with Suter-Weber on defense. This was my favorite line from the pre-season. I hope that Mom (Dumont), Dad (Arnott), Baby (Hornqvist) and the twins (Suter and Weber) can continue their chemistry throughout the regular season.
In goal, we put our faith in last season's top-ranked NHL goalie in save percentage, Dan Ellis , as our new number one. Backup netminder Pekka Rinne gets his first real crack at play in the NHL and has some giant expectations on his 6' 5" tall shoulders. From what I saw during training camp and the pre-season games, our goaltending looks quite solid, even though we might have the most inexperienced netminders in the NHL this season.
Wow, I'm so ready to get this season started...let's DROP THE PUCK ALREADY!
Thursday, October 9, 2008
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