Who goes where?

Earlier, I posted the roster for this week’s two exhibition road games, and it’s much heavier on NHL-caliber forwards than defensemen or goalies. Veterans such as Handzus, Ponikarovsky, Richardson, Stoll and Williams will make the trip, while Drewiske and Harrold are the only defensemen who spent a majority of last season in the NHL Today, I asked Terry Murray whether there was any particular rhyme or reason to selecting the rosters for the initial exhibition games…

MURRAY: “When you’ve got three games in two days like this, you’re just trying to get young guys in. You want to take a look at them and give them the opportunity to play in an NHL game. You have to qualify the eight guys [veterans]. There’s a little bit of reason behind it, but a lot of it is just trying to fill in players who have looked pretty good in the training camp.”

Question: Given the pace of training camp so far, does the arrival of these games feel about right to you?

MURRAY: “Absolutely. The players, today, are coming in in such great condition that they only need three days of practice, I think, to get themselves into that mindset. There’s no question that the game coming up right now is good for the group. They want to get going. Watching the scrimmage here today, you could see that extra burst of energy that’s out there. They’re ready to compete in a real situation now.”

Question: In today’s scrimmage, we saw some of what you’ve been talking about, in terms of carrying the puck across the offensive blue line and initiating scoring chances. Is that something we’ll see more of during the games?

MURRAY: “Possession entries and attacks are going to be a big focus of the training camp. We want to push that through the exhibition games and have the confidence to create something off the attack, with the read being correct too, that if there’s nothing there, don’t force plays. You want to then just get it deep. We feel we’ve got good people down the middle of the ice who can create some plays. We love what we have on the back end, especially with Johnson and Doughty. Those guys can get up the ice. They have great reads and shoot the puck so well. That secondary attack today is very important to have.”