Picture of Barlcays with the ice laid out (Newsday)
With the Islanders’ anticipated move to Brooklyn after two more seasons at the Colliseum, tonight’s preseason tilt provides a sneak preview of life after Nassau for Isles fans. Aside from the anticipated handful of games a year once Nassau gets renovated anyway. Ironically the new Nassau may eventually serve as the home rink for the Isles’ AHL team (insert your own punchline about how it already did for many years). To their credit, the Islanders plan to stream tonight’s game on their team website. Considering tickets for this game are going for insane $50 and up prices on StubHub the stream at least gives all Isle fans a chance to scope out their soon-to-be new digs. I’m sure the view from the obstructed seats won’t be shown, as the new Barclays building was built solely as a basketball arena, so this is a bit of a shotgun marriage between an owner who desperately wanted to keep his hometown team in the area and a borough which wants to be hip and relevant with major sports franchises in the NBA and soon in the NHL. Still, it’ll be good for the organization to eventually get out from under the headaches Nassau had become and the timing seems to be right with the Isles being an up-and-coming team (though imo the hype on them is way premature this year).
As far as the Devils go, first cuts were made yesterday and twenty-one players were trimmed from the camp roster, while 38 still remain. Perhaps the biggest name cut was Reid Boucher, who’ll start the season in Albany. Boucher played in the first two preseason games but clearly needs more seasoning in the AHL, and as one of the few forward prospects this team has you don’t want to prematurely rush him. At least the Devils have the luxury not to rush him as opposed to Stefan Matteau last year, who wound up on the top line for the first month of the season even though he wasn’t ready either. Although Matteau’s still in camp this year, he’ll probably start the season in the A as well. And the Devils also returned Anthony Brodeur to juniors in time for his team’s opening game tonight, though he didn’t get in a preseason game at least he got his week with dad in camp which must have seemed like a fantasy for the youngster. Brodeur was one of six players returned to their junior teams and the other fifteen cuts were assigned to Albany.
Of the twenty-one forwards remaining probably fourteen will make the roster so there are still some spots to be won and cuts to be made. Perhaps the most intriguing of them right now is the only forward not on a contract – Damien Brunner, a surprise participant in camp after the Devils signed him to a professional tryout contract minutes before the beginning of preseason. Brunner still looked like his body was in Switzerland from what I saw of Thursday’s second preseason game (streamed on the Devils’ website), but he has another week and a half to show what he can do and earn a contract. That won’t be easy considering the Devils have fourteen one-way contracts plus Stephen Gionta and only fourteen forwards will make the opening night roster. Injuries could postpone some decisions that need to be made but at least so far the Devils appeared to have dodged a bullet with Ryane Clowe (who left Thursday’s game because of a charley horse). Although Jaromir Jagr hasn’t practiced since leaving his first day of camp with ‘lower body soreness’, the Devils maintain his injury isn’t serious and he’s ostensibly skated on his own the last couple days. Patrik Elias also returned to practice after having leg soreness early in camp. Already facing an uphill battle to stick on the roster, Mattias Tedenby wasn’t helped by his own leg injury yesterday. Tedenby scored in the team’s first preseason game, and was his usual active self but he didn’t play on Thursday and quite possibly won’t be in the lineup tonight because of the leg issue. Losing preseason games when you’re on the bubble is never a good thing.
Although he looked worse than any of them after his triple fight night on Thursday, quasi-enforcer Krys Barch merely shrugged off a ‘normal day at the office’ after earning praise from coach Pete DeBoer for a weird trillogy against the Isles’ Brett Gallant. Weird because you don’t see the same pair fighting three times in the same game (especially since the third carries an automatic game ejection), and also because of their first fight where both enforcers awkwardly removed each other’s helmets because of one of the NHL’s new goofy rules that you can’t remove your own helmet in a fight. Combined with mandatory visors the NHL’s clearly trying to phase out fighting, since you’re not likely to hit someone in the head if they have a helmet and visor on and it’s kind of hard to have a fight with merely body punches.
All that said, I’m not a big fan of those kind of staged fights between non-hockey players either. At least Barch seemed to get better as the fights went on, though his third-period knockout came after two beatdowns early. Sadly it doesn’t seem as if our coach has yet learned that one-dimensional enforcers are only as good as the icetime they sap from actual hockey players. Especially since Barch ain’t a great fighter anyway, it’d be one thing if he fought as well as Cam Janssen used to. Then again you can hardly blame the Devils for thinking enforcers can actually play hockey when it seems as if Eric Boulton always scores against us (and never scored at all on our team). If Barch only plays in certain – re: division – games I can live with him being on the roster I suppose, but I don’t know how many one-dimensional enforcers we have to go through and eventually buy out before we realize that role is going the way of the dodo bird.
Defensively, the recent cuts did little to clear up the picture as youngsters Eric Gelinas, Alex Urbom, Jon Merrill, Brandon Burlon and Damon Severson all made the second phase of camp. It’s likely all will get another look in the next couple of preseason games as the Devils try to determine the pecking order and who if any will make the Opening Night roster. So far it seems as if Gelinas is the leader in the clubhouse among that group, with a goal and an assist in two preseason games. Gelinas’s goal was a power play rocket from the point Monday against the Rangers, a weapon the Devils haven’t had from the blueline in a long time (aside from the one-dimensional Kurtis Foster anyway, and he was only here a brief while). Merrill closed the cap pretty fast with an impressive game on Thursday, putting up a goal in the second period and an assist on a first-period shot tipped home by Rostislav Olesz. Gelinas has spent the last two seasons in the AHL, while Merrill has spent the last three in college and both look if not ready than pretty close to being able to make a contribution. Putting up a less spectacular but steady performance on Monday was Alex Urbom, who’s also paid his dues in the AHL over the last couple years. Urbom had an assist but is not going to be a big point producer like the other two could be. Almost all of the young defensemen impressed against a NHL-laden Ranger lineup Monday, although teen Damon Severson had to wait until Thursday to make his preseason debut. However, Severson was singled out by Chico Resch during Monday’s broadcast as someone who was impressing in camp.
Having all those young defensemen on the verge of being ready make it all the more disconcerting when Bryce Salvador, Anton Volchenkov, Peter Harrold and even Mark Fayne struggle the way they have so far in the preseason. Fayne in particular looks like a guy that knows he’s on the way out or can’t wait to get out after the way he was jerked in and out of the lineup last year. Harrold is fine if the Devils keep him in the role he’s supposed to be in (seventh d-man/fill-in) as opposed to playing him day in and day out the way they did in the second half last year. Everyone knows the deal with Volchenkov’s contract and that he likely won’t be moved until the offseason at earliest. Salvador’s not going anywhere either and clearly it’s less important for the vets to impress in the preseason than the rooks, but you’d sorta like to see something from guys that all struggled at different times last year.
In net, clearly round one of the unofficial competition went to Cory Schnieder, who had two shutout periods on Monday night while Martin Brodeur was lit up for four first-period goals on Thursday. Still, Brodeur was announced as the Opening Night starter on the 3rd in Pittsburgh and the goaltending will likely be a fluid situation throughout the first half of the season at least. Schnieder will start tonight’s game at Barclays with Brodeur almost certainly playing in Montreal on Monday for a rare preseason tilt at the Bell Center. Although Keith Kinkaid and Scott Wedgewood remain with the team after the first round of cuts it’s unclear whether they’ll get into any more games after each played a period caddying for the two main guys earlier this week.
So that’s where we sit after two preseason games. Normally I’m not all that invested in watching preseason but with all the different storylines and roster spots up for grabs I’m glad the game Monday was televised and the stream Thursday was quite a different experience for me. It seemed like I was in bizarro world hearing Kevin Clark and the ‘Let’s Go Devils!’ chants over a computer screen as opposed to at the arena. Of course there were no broadcasters, which sort of makes it like being at a game (only with the ability to do other things during commercial and intermissions) – except for the small inconvenience of not knowing how much time’s remaining in the period, but hey how can you complain about watching for free? Tonight I’ll likely watch the stream again on the Isles’ site, though the Devils’ radio team will also be broadcasting the game. So maybe I’ll watch and listen at the same time. Most likely a lot of jobs are going to come down to the wire, so even though the games don’t count in one respect…they’re sure meaningful to the guys playing them, and what this roster winds up looking like in less than two weeks.
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Derek
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