Exhibition Home Opener Comments

My tickets are behind the visiting goalie so I can watch the Alex's in action, so I had only one period to observe the D close up. The Alex's are clearly ramping up but are not yet in full playing from. Green was definitely impressive, and was constantly opening up the ice for the offense. Particularly impressive was a powerplay shift where the Russians were all on the ice with laser precision passing. I noticed Backstrom has a pretty serious problem in terms of his size and being able to stay on the puck. He was not tossed around like Semin is but it is clear that he will be even better once he matures and gains some more bulk.

Though he let in two goals, Ward made some amazing saves and definitely kept the Canes in the game. Ward gets back into position with amazing speed and his efforts to slim down and get faster over the sumer after a marginal year last year have paid off.