On Thursday’s game: “Playing Anaheim, it should be a good atmosphere in there. Obviously, theyre very positive about their team right now. Even though it’s an exhibition game, Im sure theyll have a pretty good following. And it will be exciting for our people. Some of the younger guys playing in their first game, thats always a pretty monumentous happening. Well be looking forward to getting a read and seeing how guys play when playing against an opposition team instead of against a bunch of guys theyve been around for a week or a week and a half for some.”
On who will play Thursday: “Weve got a lot of NHL defenders so well have a fairly veteran lineup there. I think well play Boyle tomorrow on defense, Jack Johnson is going to play tomorrow. Well have six to seven rookies in the lineup and well probably have a couple of kids from junior that will be in the lineup. We’re not going to play Hickey or Bernier. We figured out well give them an extra day to kind of get used to things and well probably play them in the second game at home. We’re going to play four goalies through first couple games. Aubin is going to play and Cloutier is going to play, so theyll each at least play a half of a game.”
“I think we only have one guy who is going to play in both games. … It’s an older player, wears a single digit.”
On cuts: “We’ll probably send a lot of the junior guys back on the weekend, then we’ll have our first cut down I would think Sunday or Monday, then continue to slim it down pretty quickly next week. We leave basically after our game on the 18th and don’t come back until Oct. 1. We won’t carry everyone throughout. To Europe, we’re only going to bring 25 players. The numbers are pretty set. We’re going to have three goalies, eight defenders and 14 forwards.”
On last center spot: “We need someone in that position and thats going to be a hotly contested position for the club this year. Candidates are going to be Brady Murray, Jeff Giuliano, we may try Zeiler there. We want to give consideration to the young guys that have come in and played really well and to me theyve been Cliche and Lewis. Thats the candidates. I may have forgotten one other guy. I think Gabe Gauthier is going to play a little bit as well. Those are the guys who will get a little more opportunity to show what they got.”
On where the team needs to improve this season: “I hope you see a big upgrade on our defensive game. You look at the stats where we have to improve. Our goals against has to be down. We can’t hope to be in the playoffs if we dont get our goals against down. There are a number of areas we looked at. We need to improve our penalty killing. That should help our goals against. We need to limit the shots against us, that’s common sense that you should have less chances against you. Our goaltending has to improve, and our coverage has to be better. I know our team has an offensive flair to it. We have improved the offensive dynamics of this club. The greatest importance though is going to be at the other end. It has to be. We’re 50 goals separated from all the teams that made the playoffs and we know we have to get better.”
