Let’s cut straight to the chase today.
Preseason game 1 is tomorrow, so let’s take a look at how training camp has been going so far.
Quick note, this does not include any updates from Tuesday, Sept. 24.
Training Camp
Read about it:
Powers
Powers and Laz
Even more Powers and Laz
With the first pre-season game tomorrow night, I thought I’d take a second to gather some thoughts on training camp thus far.
There haven’t been cuts yet, but we can expect cuts to come sometime this week. Most likely those cuts will be AHL players and those headed to juniors.
For those who are trying to claim a spot on the roster, they’ll get a fair shot with about 5 preseason games before a decision is made. So we can expect to see a lot of Frank Nazar, Landon Slaggert, Kevin Korchinski, and Isaak Phillips among others.
Luke Richardson opened camp up with scrimmages on day 1 which gave beat writers a lot of time to observe the current lineup. I said before that I’m not reading too much into the lines as of right now. But let’s take a look at who’s been playing with who.
Taylor Hall - Connor Bedard - Tyler Bertuzzi
Lukas Reichel - Philipp Kurashev - Teuvo Teravainen
Nick Foligno - Jason Dickinson - Ilya Mikheyev
Patrick Maroon - Andreas Athanasiou - Craig Smith
Colton Dach - Frank Nazar - Nick Lardis
Joey Anderson - Ryan Donato - Landon Slaggert
I would like to see Teuvo Teravainen on Connor Bedard’s wing (which will happen). Teuvo’s solid two-way play is good for Bedard and Tyler Bertuzzi. Bert’s goal-scoring style is perfect for Bedard. I think Taylor Hall is fine with Bedard, my only thing against it is Hall isn’t so great on defense. But it’s a first line.
The current second line is what it is. Teuvo still works here because both Philipp Kurashev and Lukas Reichel aren’t great in the D-zone.
Andreas Athanasiou can slot in anywhere on the middle-six. I’m not sure I see him on the fourth line but I also don’t really see him on the third line. Both Nick Foligno and Jason Dickinson will be staples there. I think Athanasiou is on the second line at best which brings either Reichel or Kurashev down to the third line.
Of those lines, the players who are going to be competing for spots are: Nazar, Slaggert, Colton Dach, Ryan Donato, and Joey Anderson. On the blueline it’s a competition for Korchinski, Phillips, Wyatt Kaiser, Ethan Del Mastro, and Nolan Allen. You can include Louis Crevier if you’re being polite.
Trash Bin
For all things not Hawks related.
NHL Expansion
Read about it: The Athletic
There’s been talk of more expansion in the NHL with a high likelihood of two more teams being added. That would make 34 teams total in the NHL.
The two cities currently leading the charge are Houston and Atlanta.
Houston, I can see the NHL wanting to expand there. Atlanta has already experienced two NHL franchises that failed. I don’t know why Bettman has this infatuation with Atlanta.
This is somewhat frustrating because the one city that I only care about getting an NHL team is Quebec City.
Being that I have family ties to that city, I would love to see a QC team in the league again.
But I don’t see it happening anytime soon.
The NHL has made it very clear that Arizona isn’t going away (technically the Coyotes still exist). And it looks like the NHL is going to want to tap into every major US sports market before they consider adding another Canadian team.
The only way I see Quebec City getting a team any time soon is through relocation. They would have be ready just like Utah was for a team to quite suddenly need to relocate.
Even then, there are more attractive suiters in the NHL’s eyes over a QC team.
Ethan Loy
Pretty sick part from Loy. Great trick selection and great spots. Trick that stuck out to me was the shuv to wall, it’s just pleasing to the eye. But his ender, air out gap to lip slide, was pretty mind blowing.
Loy doesn’t have a proper board sponsor, which is kind of surprising. He rides for Swim (I think?) but that doesn’t mean anything. Both Mark Appleyard and Loy were cut from Element last year.
Out.