GDT: Preseason Game 3 - Anaheim Ducks @ Los Angeles Kings , 3pm PT

[Hockey Duckie]

Pre-season is an island disconnected from last season lol. More than 70% of the players we're icing on a given night have worked with Cronin for like 2 weeks. A non-insignificant amount will never see professional ice again.

It can take months for bonafide NHL players to adjust to a system. Pointing to the performance of a bunch of prospects and fringe NHLers in three games as evidence of bad systems is crazy, even if it's just "added evidence."

Again, I'm not saying Cronin is some incredible coach. All I'm saying is these games are no indiciation of what kind of coach he is. We could have come out flying and won every game 10-0 and it would still be meaningless. It would just be more fun.

The early pre-season games are for slowly ramping up players as well as give prospects and invitees some NHL game experience, even though it's just pre-season. Then the later pre-season games are where we get most of the NHL roster together.

If some do want to criticize some the early pre-season games, then they should only focus on the returnees. We have already seen our top-9 together, but in different games. Game 2 vs Sharks part deux was our top-6. Game 3 vs Kings was our #3 forward line. In our top-9, none of the lines are the same from last season and they may take some time to find chemistry or see if Strome at center works.

Although Cronin is the head coach, the special teams are relegated to the assistant coaches. Asst coach Thompson is in charge of the PK unit and Clune is our new guy for the PP unit. Also new to the coaching staff are asst. coach Army and goalie coach Budaj. Dunno what role Army does, though. With all the new coaching staff, maybe we don't judge Cronin in the pre-season as he is also trying to find chemistry with his new staff.

One positive observation is that we haven't heard of the team doing a full practice before a pre-season game... yet.