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The Wings beat Buffalo 6-2 in their second pre season game. The Blue Jackets are coming to town as Detroit starts a scheduled 3 straight days of games. The road team will be in Pittsburgh on Sunday with the Blackhawks coming to LCA on Monday. With the day off Tuesday, Detroit plays back to back again Wednesday and Thursday and wraps up the preseason a week from Saturday.
It’s interesting to have a preseason that holds a bit more meaning. The line of Suter/Fabbri/Raymond was impressive to watch. I hope that same trio will hit the ice against Columbus. The jackets are, for all intents and purposes, a completely different team this year. New coach, a few players are gone (including Foligno, Jones and Atkinson) and a return in Voracek. I don’t know if the matches will have the same 1 goal intensity as in the past several years. The exodus of talent from Columbus may finally have taken a bit of a toll and set the table for rebuild. The defense still has all star Werenski (locked down to a nice new deal), but there should definitely be a different feel to the play.
Special teams will continue be tweaked, but I have to say that I like what’s been done so far. The PK, especially, just seems much smoother. The power play has started to show better looks as well. I’d like to see Zadina cash in at some point. He’s made some really nice plays. Seider should continue to munch minutes with linemate Nick Leddy.
It’s a shame that Berggren went down with injury. I really think he’d be in the mix a bit more. However, Raymond has such a special set of skills. He’s made some errant passes, but seems to learn quickly. He certainly doesn’t seem overwhelmed by the speed of the game. Veleno had a really nice look on the power play last game. He’s skating well. It just feels like Raymond is a bit more creative offensively. By next season, this will all be a moot point as both should be full time NHLers.
Newpower also caught my eye a bit. He’s a strong skater that looks like he can create offensively. It’s a lot of fun to have so many new faces. Not much can top the excitement of what Suter and Raymond brought. Fabbri, as always, is just a positive human being. With all the injuries he’s dealt with, he just shows up and goes hard. Similar to what Patrick Eaves was like a long time ago. He just always seemed happy to hit the ice. I remember a training camp where Eaves had time on a line with Pav and also played 4th line, pk, and whatever else they needed. He approached everything with a fantastic attitude.
I don’t know if we’ll see another 6 goal outbreak, but I’m hoping for some good looks again. I’ll have a post game in the same format and try to get all the goals included in the write up. 3 straight days of games, that’s just fantastic.
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