Yesterday I neglected to mention a few thoughts from St. Louis:
- I'm happy to see Sean Dolan as captain. He seems like a mature, level-headed kid. He's reliable, and he doesn't make stupid mistakes on the ice or take stupid penalties. It's been fun watching Sean over the years. He came into his freshman year not expecting to get much ice time and ended up playing 40 games that year and then 35 the next year. He struggled a bit at times last year and was left out of the line-up for a number of series, but I always enjoyed watching him play, and I think he'll do a nice job for us this year, both as a player and as the captain. (Cue HatchetJoe for fond reminiscing about the Grotting-Dolan-Bendickson line . . .)
- I liked Jake Gardiner this past weekend. That kid sure can skate the puck up the ice; I just love watching him do that.
- Craig Johnson has to be happy about finally getting a regular spot in the lineup, and I'm happy about this as well. Clearly he's no Jake Gardiner, but I think he'll be a solid, dependable presence on D for us. He looked fine to me in St. Louis, and I was pleased to see him have the confidence to jump into the play and take the puck toward the net as well.
- Craig Smith really needs to stay out of the penalty box. He's gonna score a lot of goals for us this year, but I get the impression that he might be a bit prone to stupid penalties. I hope I'm right about the lots of goals (of course I'm right about that!) and wrong about the tendency for foolish penalties.
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