Again, with so few games, with much of the talent made up of AHlers and with the games against weaker clubs, it is hard to be very certain of the preseason impressions.
For what it is worth, here are some thoughts I was left with from training camp:
I saw nothing alarming with the goaltending. I thought they were pretty decent. Nothing conclusive but it could have been worse.
To me the two weakest dmen from last season coming into this one were Holl & Sandin. Holl had some rough moments in the earlier games but came on strong to play pretty well. Sandin looks better than I've ever seen him. If the other current top 4 don't regress with age/injury, and Holl & Sandin continue to play as they have been, the team D will be better than last season.
Bunting, Matthews, Marner & Nylander looked to be in great form.
Jury is still out for me on the the line of Aston-Reese Kampf Aube-Kubel. I didn't see anything wrong with it. They seemed to play their role pretty well and should be hard to play against. I've liked the idea of top 3 scoring lines for years.
Malgin & Robertson provided some optimism as potential top 6 players.
I was encouraged that Kerfoot worked on his faceoffs and had a 57% win% in preseason. I was also encouraged that Jarnkrok will help with faceoff duties for the 3rd line. That should improve over last year. I was a little surprised Jarnkrok didn't get more reps at center as he seems better at faceoffs.
Last year, there seemed to be more uncertainty. Ritchie & Amadio trials failed. Matthews was recovering from wrist surgery. Sandin and Liljegren were getting broken in. Campbell missed some time. They got off to a rough 2W-4L-1OT start.
This year, the 7 D from later last year are around (one on LTIR). The 1st and 4th lines were set quickly. Then the 3rd line. I think they're more settled. If the goalies continue their preseason quality, they should get off to a better start.
