Morning Skate: Countrymen

Oct 6, 2022 - 10:30 AM

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Thursday! It’s here. Let’s have fun out there.

As far as preseason games go, last night’s was pretty entertaining, eh?

The Bruins and Rangers treated a national TV audience to nine goals, 58 shots, 53 hits...you name it, you got it.

The Czech Mates were the stars of the show, as countrymen Dave, Dave, and Pavel combined for eight points and generally ran roughshod over the borough of Manhattan.

It was a pretty big night for Czechia overall, too: along with the DDP line, Czechia had Jakub Zboril, Jakub Lauko, Libor Hajek, and Filip Chytil in the mix.

Preseason or not, seven skaters in the same NHL game from a (relatively) small country is pretty cool.

While it’s not a great idea to draw conclusions from preseason, one can’t help but think that a performance like last night’s will give Jim Montgomery something to think about in terms of his top six.

Many of us assumed we’d see Zacha fill in for Brad Marchand, and see Taylor Hall play with Krejci and Pastrnak.

If the Czechs can play like last night regularly, however, it seems silly to consider splitting them up.

We’ll see!

Today’s discussion topic

It seems silly to pick out one guy, but since he’s the one on a PTO: your thoughts on Anton Stralman last night and in general?

Do you think he’s sticking around?