(no subject)

[bzarcher]

Last night, aside from the Jackets losing, went really well.

I took my Mom to her first hockey game, and she really enjoyed getting to see the speed and the power involved. She's really interested about going to another game in the future, too!

The free seats were -good-. Section 210, row A, which basically meant I was hanging out at the very edge of the upper bowl. Pictures up in my Flickr, as usual.

If I had the money free, I think they're going to pitch me for season tickets there, and I'd love to, but I think it's going to have to wait for next season.

Comments

[flaggerx.livejournal.com]

One one hand, it does suck taking Mom to the game and having the home team lose. On the other hand, it is the pre-season. The most crucial question is: How did they look? Do you see some talented combinations for the upcoming season? Are the players buying into the system.

Is there hope?

What am I saying? The pre-season's entire purpose is to generate hope. Then comes the season.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Mixed bag.

Mason = Awesome. I think he goes down to Juniors next year, makes the squad in 08-09, 09-10 at the worst. Extremely confident in goal, and even though he got beat twice by goals (neither of which he could do much about - 1 was caused by a defensive turnover right in front of the net on his off side, the other by the defensemen getting in his way so he couldn't see the shot) he never lost his cool.

Some of the Defense (Tollefsen, Russell, Hejda, Klesla) looked very good. Hainsey and Wescott looked shaky to terrible depending on the phase of the game.

From what I understand, the team did "team building exercises" at Camp Mary Orton on Wednesday and yesterday morning, and I think it showed. They seemed tired, which was really a big contrast from how much energy I saw on Sunday.

The penalty kill did pretty darn well for having to deal with so many penalties, but the caveat to that was that there were a lot of penalities. Some of that I blame on very inconsistent reffing (Vyborny gets tripped by a Hurricane player's stick and it isn't a penalty, Nash bumps a defender's leg with his stick (while shooting the puck!) and it's a tripping call?) but some of it was taking stupid penalties.

The offense just didn't seem to find their motor, but it was another night of line combinations that hadn't been on the ice before.

All things considered, there is hope. We're now 2-2-1 in the pre-season, and we seem to be playing really well on the road. (Both wins, in fact, on the road!)

I think if we can solidify the offense, we're going to be a .500 team. The goaltending is there (LeClaire looks really good, Norrenna is solid, and if either goes down I think we call Mason up), defense is there (Wescott and Hainsey are probably bound for Syracuse), and once the veterans all get slotted in, I have hope that we can make noise.

I don't know if we're playoff bound this year, but we finished 11th last year, and I think 9th or 10th is a realistic goal.