Norlinder was better than Wideman tonight and Niku couldnt even make the WPG jets defense even though its one of the worst in the league. The only guy in front of Norlinder right now is Kulak but theres still a lot of games left

Poehling is currently slotted in on the 3rd line, so Ducharme’s lineup wouldn’t have him as a healthy scratch.

Toffoli-Suzuki-Caufield was #1
Drouin-Dvorak-Anderson was #2
Harvey-Pinard-Evans-Armia was #3

Dauphin-Poehling-Lehkonen
Perrault-Paquette-Belzile

Those 6 seem to be the finalists for the bottom line.
Hoffman will be back so even Harvey-Pinard will be in the mix so 7 forward
for 3 forwards and 1 in the press box as a healthy scratch

Poehlings barely a sure thing as its likely the reason Lehkonen's playing RW is
They plan on slotting Perrault-Paquette-Lehkonen together with Poehling or Harvey-Pinard taking the press box job
That said Harvey-Pinard seems to have gotten the coaches real high on him if the press interviews are any indicator

Dauphin is just a placeholder for Gallagher, who was dealing with family matters. He’s never played RW before this, so they just stick a guy with Poehling & Lehkonen until Gallagher got back. Which would make that the 3rd line.

And RHP is getting an opportunity to leapfrog Perreault playing on the 4th line.

Yeah that does throw things off a bit making those final spots more important
In that case its probably Lehkonen-Paquette-Armia on 4th then
Hoffman-Evans-Gallagher together by proxy on 3rd line

Our top 2 lines are clicking together so no need to mess that up
So i guess they wingers are just competing for the 13th forward spot with the runner up to the Center Job (Paquette or Poehling)

Its going to be an interesting camp with this kind of depth.
Especially with RHP playing so well in the system offering that Paul Byron style play with some speed (Even if not at Byron levels still helps)

Our Defense was a little rough but i like what i see from the kids
Ghule is playing solid and if we didnt have Kulak im sure would be a shoe-in
That said i think like Suzuki his first camp he's sent down to over achieve in Junior

Fairbrother i really like as he plays an all around game
He never stops moving and he's got good positioning.
I think if Kulak didnt have such a high AHL cap hit he might give him a run

While our forwards are stocked with a lot of Goal Scorers and skill
Our D core is going to have to be by committee with everyone playing atleast 18 minutes minimum
For that reason i expect Kulak and Wideman to slot in over the rookies ,Oulette and Niku

We really learn nothing from previous mistakes don't we... KK was the latest example that was brought in too early so let's just do the same with Guhle and make him our 6th defender so he can see the ice 9 minutes a game. Makar is a phenom, drafted fourth overall and he spent a full two years in the NCAA, our boi played 12 games last year, no chance he sitcks around even if he plays better than Petry by the end of the camp.

Also how is this suppose to be an "early line up" when you're having 24 players and two of them are out for several weeks?

KK was fine technically its was his Attitude that was the problem
Its why he was sent down to the AHL and why he was benched by Ducharme without remoarse

Great Kid but he kept saying " i dont know what role they want me to play"
But its clear as ****ing day they want him to learn how to win a Faceoff ,use his size and shoot the puck more.

Lehkonen came up young and if anything has overachieved with 3 coaches loving him
KK is 0/2 and likely to piss off his new coach sooner then later.


Then again if he was left in Europe maybe he would have matured mentally enough to not irritate all his Pro Coaches to the point
they replace him with a 7th round long shot draft pick made good in Jake Evans who thrived thanks to chances he got from KK losing ice time.