Monday, October 02, 2006

Opening night roster

As I predicted in my previous post, Bayda is now gone to Albany, leaving 22 healthy players on the active roster (along with two on IR). All twelve forwards will be in the lineup come Wednesday, but that still leaves two defensemen watching from the press box.

From what I've seen combined with my personal opinion, Hedican, Commodore, Wesley, Wallin, and Gleason should be five of them, meaning Tanabe, Hutchinson, and Babchuk are competing for one spot tomorrow night. Hutchinson is the clear loser here, so Babchuk and Tanabe. There is always the off chance that Wallin sits; it's happened enough in the past, but I think he's earned it. I'm guessing it will be Tanabe, but I could be mistaken. I like Babchuk and I want him to progress into a regular NHL defenseman.

Forwards
# Player

11 Justin Williams
12 Eric Staal
13 Ray Whitney
14 Kevyn Adams
16 Andrew Ladd
17 Rod Brind'Amour
18 Ryan Bayda - Albany
19 Trevor Letowski
24 Scott Walker
25 Eric Belanger
26 Erik Cole
27 Craig Adams
59 Chad LaRose
61 Cory Stillman - IR

Defensemen
# Player

2 Glen Wesley
5 Frantisek Kaberle - IR
6 Bret Hedican
7 Niclas Wallin
8 Tim Gleason
22 Mike Commodore
28 Andrew Hutchinson
45 David Tanabe
48 Anton Babchuk

Goalies
# Player

30 Cam Ward
47 John Grahame

1 comment:

Chris said...

I read that in the paper this morning. I think it's a couple of things. The primary comment in the article that really strikes a chord is this: Agents for hockey players, he said, are "much less aggressive than those who represent, say, football players and basketball players."

Hockey players have historically not been as self-promoting as, say, basketball players or "skill position" football players. This definitely works against them, although it wouldn't be a bad thing to see more of it. There are some players who are pretty active. Kevyn Adams seems to be everywhere, Cole and Commodore get out for promotions, and I just heard a radio spot with Cam Ward.

I think it just takes time and for the sponsors to get comfortable with the idea. What did you take from the article?