(Preseason) Game Day

The arena seems even colder than usual today, but everything else was the same as it has been.

Everyone was all smiles during the morning practice, and even the players who just got here yesterday were clowning around with the more established guys between drills.

Sebastien Centomo seemed pretty unstoppable again, giving up only one goal during a one-on-one drill. Joey Moggach scored it.

Every time I've gone to the arena since Monday, there have been at least a few people at the box office, and today was no exception. Hopefully that means some of you will be at the game tonight.

The team was divided into blue and yellow jerseys this morning, with yellow denoting the guys who will not play tonight.

Serge Dube, Adam Rivet, Bobby Russell and Steve Weidlich were wearing yellow.

That means the returning players who will suit up tonight are Igor Agarunov, Alex Goupil and Matt Summers, as Jeff Bes is still in Denver.

All of the new guys will play with the exception of Russell, the only new veteran.

Just to clarify, there are four veterans on the team (Bes, Centomo, Dube and Russell), but only three vet spots are filled because goalies do not count against the limit this season.

Coach had the guys do a bit of a mini-scrimmage with rotating groups of five guys who are playing tonight going up against the four who aren't.

Here are his thoughts on what he wanted to accomplish in practice with the guys who are playing tonight:

"We went over power play and breakout and went over the penalty kill a little bit, just to give them an idea. We hadn't worked on that at all in the first three days that we were here. It's just too much for them to put together, to include in their memory bank, so we went over that just make sure they're aware of what they're doing, and the neutral ice trap, also. It's just kind of prepare themselves, get their mind into the game and knowing that they have to show me who's going to stay and who's going to go."

Here is what he thinks you can expect to see from tonight's game:

"I expect to see hard work, some physical hockey, speed. Come with the lady who brought you. If you're a tough guy, play a tough role. If you're a physical guy, play the physical role. If you're a fast guy that can score, play that role. You know what you can do; let's see how well you can do it."

Coach let the guys who will be playing tonight go early, and they were all off the ice by around 10:45, but the guys who are not going to be playing stayed out until after I left and were getting quite a workout. Here's coach's explanation for that:

"They're not playing tonight, so what we have to do is make sure we skate them really hard so it'll be game-like conditions. They know they had a hard workout today, to keep them in shape and keep them as sharp as possible for the times they do play in exhibition games if they do play at all."

I'll post the full roster for the game later, then I'll be trying my hand at some minimalistic live blogging tonight.