It’s been progressively harder to get ready for Devils hockey each year. Training camp became a mystery to be revealed by proper beat writers, rather than open to the public as it was at South Mountain Arena. While other teams play exhibition games daily, the Devils haven’t played in a week. At least tonight’s game was on MSG (and MSG2, minus any Devils broadcast crew).
There were a bunch of things to like tonight: Cory Murphy looked like he could skate with the big boys and delivered on the third power play according to expectations. Halischuk had 4 shots and seemed to control the puck well once he settled down in the second period. Rolston and Shanahan showed poise. Rod Pelley played a very solid game at center. Given that Elias is still broken, Parise had the night off, and the blueline was missing Mottau and Salvador, it was a respectable game.
And then the not so good: Colin White’s puck control is still a random event generator. Over his stick at the blue line, under or around him behind the net, bad passes — I saw enough of that in the Carolina playoff series. He either needs to seriously get to work or get ready to be a 7th defenseman. I wasn’t in the locker room when White and Langenbrunner went into the verbal corner, but maybe Jamie is pressing White as well.
Finally, the truly weird: The Islanders broadcast was a John Tavares love-fest. Too bad he only had one shot, but turned the puck over more times than I do in a beer league game, and got his pocket picked by that ever-shifty Danius Zubrus. Tavares will most likely grow into a first-line player, but he was much more Daigle than dangle tonight. I had much more fun watching Brett Westgarth play defense for the Isles — Princeton ’07, minor league grinder, now following his younger brother Kevin (Princeton ’07 as well, LA Kings) to the bigs.
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