Pre-game peculiarities

I had the opportunity to attend the Sabres game against the Devils last Saturday, and a few things about the teams pregame skate stuck with me.

Most of what the team was doing consisted of running through simple drills one time each, and then moving on to the next variation of the shooting/passing pattern. Most surprising is that instead of Hecht or one of the captains running the drills, Andrew Peters was the one running the pre-game show. Not that it's a hard job to do, but it was a bit unexpected to see an often scratched player running everything.

Some players are better in practice than others. Pominville was hitting the most beautiful shots, while Kotalik was missing everything, and Stafford was alternating between top corner and three feet wide. The most aggressive in practice (like in games) were Campbell and Gaustad. Campbell was the first onto the ice, and after knocking a puck into his own net, turned and from his own blueline nailed a shot into the top corner of the far net.

A few players including Tallinder mostly warmed up on their own, stickhandleing and stretching in the neutral zone, rather than taking part in some of the drills. Miller did participate however, and for the drills in which he was not in net, he would take shots at the goal, just like the position players. Thibault however did not.