Post by donjohnson on Sept 1, 2021 7:28:52 GMT -5
Surprised to see it so quiet on here after we finally had an opportunity to see the Spirit players play in Saginaw. For those that weren't there, here were my observations:
1) For someone who follows the team pretty close, man, I'm going to have to learn a lot of new names and numbers this year...so many new young guys since we essentially have 2 rookie classes this year.
2) The 1st round pick from The Skulls movie Lucas McNamara definitely stood out...he was smooth, fast and seems like he's going to develop into a great player someday.
3) I don't think we've ever signed someone from the U18 draft before but this kid Calem Mangone has some serious hands. He's not very big but one of his goals last night was filthy.
4) T-Bone looked more confident but also dangled way too much and he's going to get put on his can if he tries to do that in the games.
5) Klein is a pretty big guy and threw his weight around a decent amount last night...which leads me to:
5b) We need to find some size...with a team this young, I don't care what the fighting rules are, we need to protect these young guys so they can develop. If we don't find a way to add some physicality, it has the potential to be a long season.
6) Goaltending...I think this will be a strength of ours this year...obviously we know what we have with Lennox and Oke is a very highly-touted goalie as well. Lennox didn't play last night and Oke came in the second half and gave up some goals but most of them were not his fault.
I can definitely see a situation where Lennox makes the World Jrs and we end up trading him to a contender. Unfortunately covid took away our best years and it's going to be another rebuild but DD knows what he's doing and this team has some talent but they're a year or two away and hopefully we'll see some good hockey this year but it may not show up in the wins.
1) For someone who follows the team pretty close, man, I'm going to have to learn a lot of new names and numbers this year...so many new young guys since we essentially have 2 rookie classes this year.
2) The 1st round pick from The Skulls movie Lucas McNamara definitely stood out...he was smooth, fast and seems like he's going to develop into a great player someday.
3) I don't think we've ever signed someone from the U18 draft before but this kid Calem Mangone has some serious hands. He's not very big but one of his goals last night was filthy.
4) T-Bone looked more confident but also dangled way too much and he's going to get put on his can if he tries to do that in the games.
5) Klein is a pretty big guy and threw his weight around a decent amount last night...which leads me to:
5b) We need to find some size...with a team this young, I don't care what the fighting rules are, we need to protect these young guys so they can develop. If we don't find a way to add some physicality, it has the potential to be a long season.
6) Goaltending...I think this will be a strength of ours this year...obviously we know what we have with Lennox and Oke is a very highly-touted goalie as well. Lennox didn't play last night and Oke came in the second half and gave up some goals but most of them were not his fault.
I can definitely see a situation where Lennox makes the World Jrs and we end up trading him to a contender. Unfortunately covid took away our best years and it's going to be another rebuild but DD knows what he's doing and this team has some talent but they're a year or two away and hopefully we'll see some good hockey this year but it may not show up in the wins.
