I jotted a bunch of notes from the Red-White scrimmage today. The rest of my afternoon/evening is booked, so I will organize and post them sometime after hours tonight. Trying to watch 40 players is impossible, so surely everyone who was there saw different things and had different impressions.
I encourage everyone to chime in with their thoughts on the scrimmage either answering my few questions below or just commenting however you choose.
1) Of the veterans in the game (Chris Terry, Andrej Nestrasil, Victor Rask, Elias Lindholm, Zach Boychuk), who most impressed?
2) Of the young players on the Red team, who most impressed?
3) Of the young players on the White team, who most impressed?
(If you do not remember who was on which team, feel free to just comment in general on the youth.)
4) What was your 1st impression of Noah Hanifin?
5) Did any of the goalies stand out as especially good?
6) What did you get to eat and was it absolutely wonderful (this is mostly for the food truck crowd, but nothing against PNC Arena food either)?
7) Anything else?
Go Canes!
1. I was mainly watching the newer kids, but Nestrasil’s goal was nice.
2. At one point, Tolchinski wet to the boards with a bigger opponent, and used his stick skills to pop the puck lose, and dish it out. Good thinking to use his strengths on the defensive end.
3. Good stick work by Wallmark on his goal
4. No glaring mistakes, He looked like he was thinking on his feet, rather than panicking and doing something by instinct.
5. No, but nobody got lit up ,either. That may be a good thing.
6. I liked the Arepa Culture truck. It was like chicken dumplings with a kick.
7. I can’t wait for next week’s home preseason games.
1. I thought Terry had a good game. Made some great plays and his pass on Nestrasil’s goal was a thing of beauty.
2. Hanifin. That kid can skate, skate, and skate some more.
3. I really liked Nicolas Roy. His skating needs work but he made some really good plays with the puck, particularly on Woods’ 3 on 3 goal.
4. Hanifin is awesome. He is big, he makes really good smart plays in his own end, can skate for days and is good with the puck and his goal was a beautiful play. Did I mention his skating?
5. Macintyre made some good saves, and I thought Altshuller was good, none of his goals were really his fault. Tirronen impressed me as well.
6. I went to the philly cheese steak truck (forget what it was called), and had a chicken philly sandwich (think philly cheese steak with chicken instead), and some fries. It was excellent.
7. Me neither
1. Terry and Nestrasil both looked pretty good to me. Terry seems to continue to improve his skating.
2. Phil Di Giuseppe and Noah Hanifin really stuck out on the Red squad. PDG played with a lot of fire and energy, and as I wrote elsewhere, his goal was a direct result of playing strong in front of the net. Hanifin continues to show me that he’s unbelievably talented. There were times he clearly outclassed his teammates skill-wise.
3. Wallmark and Roy stood out. Both were poised and Roy, in particular, didn’t seem to be overwhelmed at all. Wallmark thinks the game really well.
4. I can’t say enough about how impressed I was with Noah Hanifin. I literally only saw one tiny thing to nit pick about and that was a blind centering pass in his own zone but two of his teammates were there and it didn’t go astray….but it could have. Regardless, his skating is so good and his passes were so on point that it’s hard to see how he won’t make our Top 6 on the blueline.
5. I thought Altshuller looked very good. The two goals he gave up were both odd man rushes that he really couldn’t do anything to stop.
6. Didn’t eat anything.
7. There was a very strong positive vibe in the arena that seemed to emanate from the team.