GAME DAY - Pre-season || October, 1st, 2011 - vs. Edmonton Oilers

Alright, first of all, welcome to October.  October means two things to me, the end of baseball is near and the regular season is upon us.  I'm sure you are in the middle of your fantasy pool drafts, deciding if one of the Sedin's go first or if Stamkos is gonna decide to do what he does.  Maybe even pick Crosby in the first round hoping he comes back early and tears it up like he was before he got hurt.  A little word of advice - don't do that.

Our line up tonight looks a lot closer to what would be dressed in a month or two, except for the injuries to Raymond and Kesler, but this should give us a decent idea of what we're going to look like...

Forwards


Sedin-Sedin-Burrows
Sturm-Hodgson-Samuelsson
Higgins-Malhotra-Hansen
Volpatti-Lapierre-Oreskovich <---the new L.O.V. line

Blueline


Hamhuis-Bieksa
Salo-Edler
Ballard-Tanev

Luongo should start with Schneider on the bench but at this point, they are both playing about equal.

Despite losing Erhoff to a team that has "the best chance to win the Stanley Cup" - the Sabres, I think that Ballard and Tanev are going to have a surprising year this year.  If they stay paired together that is.  They are both smooth skating, puck moving defenseman.  Ballard showed flashes of it when he would take it end to end and score.  Tanev though, seemed like all he had to do was play mistake free, which he did that and more during the playoffs last year (lets not mention the playoffs though, touchy subject).

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Anybody else see it?!  Luongo tries to catch the Oilers on a change on the powerplay in the first period, by coming OUT of his net and slapping it down the ice.  It wasn't pretty, but it was a hell of an offensive turn around for Lou.

Good to see Hodgson score, if he doesn't have a decent year this year, do we THEN call him a bust draft pick?  It would  be his first full(ish) NHL season, but he has to take advantage of his opportunity while Kesler and Raymond are out.  So far, so good.

With all these big suspensions, I think it's a good thing because it should send the message.  That Edler hit though, I hope he doesn't get suspended for that.  It's coming from a Canuck fan I know, but come on now.  There was no intent or anything, it was Hall trying to be too cute when all he had to do was go in strong.

Why is it that everytime Luongo gets interviewed, he can't seem to look at just one spot.  Even TWO places, but he's looking around like Al Pacino does when he's trying to give a speech.  Anyway, he played well, the lone goal he let in wasn't exactly his fault.  He made a few saves from his ass and then finally Paajarvi roofed it past him.

I'm excited for this year though.  With Volpatti and a regular spot of Oreskovich, we seem to be a lot tougher.  Although the new rules are leaning towards no more hitting ever, we've got to get as many hits in on players like Nugent-Hopkins while we're still allowed to hit.

For our regular season opener, everybody is making a whole lot of assumptions about Crosby even coming on the road trip.  He's not going to play people, he is on light contact right now, he isn't going to jump right into a game situation.  Especially when that game situation is Oreskovich coming at you with Lapierre there to take the punches for us.