What Im really loving is how Honka is showing his true PP speciality. Normally thats something that people just tack on to descriptions of offensive defensemen, but it seems like he is really good at it.
Honka is making me eat crow and I do not care
Impressive without Ritchie that they're still steamrolling. All aboard the Stransky train.
Pronman mentioned that McDonnell believe Honka can be an effective puck rush, puck mover, and trigger man ... essentially the total package you could be as an offensive defender.
His hype train is almost at full steam like Klingberg's.
Yeah, there will of course be a lot of competition in Cedar Park but I'm guessing the Faksa/Stransky combo is going to see a lot of ice and be major contributors this season. They play both ends of the rink, they almost constantly control the puck, they're dangerous and shifty offensively... hard to see any coach not loving that. This time though is very valuable for guys to make an impression who are going to be in CP under Laxdal and it seems like they're making the most of it.Stransky is probably the guy who benefits the most from this tournament. He's clearly winning Laxdal over, and his performance here could have a huge impact on how how Laxdal uses him moving forward.
That said, it'll be interesting/ridiculous to see how Laxdal uses everyone once they start flooding in at the end of the year. This group of guys joining Texas late could make an even bigger impact than Faksa did for last year's team. Laxdal specifically mentioned the group of future AHL callups as well.