But that’s not all that is making it feel like hockey season is here.  The Stars completed day 2 and 3 of PEI and tomorrow they will be in Montreal for their own first pre-season game against the Canadiens.  With a scrimmage that saw a 4-3 game ending in a shootout (with Tommy Wandell of all people scoring the winner) and a whole slew of great interviews by Ralph and Razor coming in the training camp’s wake.  Over all you have to think that this was the best idea; repeat the successful team building exercise of taking camp to Prince Edward Island from last year and putting it back into play this year with 7 new players on the roster – and some new rookie faces as well.

But, tomorrow is the first real test.  Can the Stars take to the new system that is a lot more about details under Coach Gulutzan than anything?  I think that’s the biggest question going into the pre-season and while it may change when the regular season starts, this years pre-season could be more important than any in the past few years simply because of the new players and the new coach behind the bench needing these games to really meld… even more so than the “Crawford experiment”.

We learned a lot about what the players think and we learned about some of the personalities of the new players, in all of those aforementioned great interviews that are over on the Dallas Stars official website.

What did I learn?

… [visit site to read more]

Stars Update: PEI Day 2/3, Pre-Season and more! - Blackout Dallas - Blackout Dallas - A Dallas Stars blog

The general consensus from today was, “Pace”.  The practice had a high pace to it and from what Coach Gully has said, every practice should be that way from here on out.

Yeah, and we’ll practice that way – “pacey” – all the time.  If you’re going to play pacey you have to practice pacey; the two have to be together.

At the bottom of this article there is a video of the post-camp interview with Glen Gulutzan in which he is asked about the pace and more.  So, check that video out.  But first, I’d like to discuss some other things we learned not only from the interview but also from camp itself…

Vernon Fiddler

I think we forget one thing about Mr. Fiddler.  His contract length.  3-years to pick up the grinding center off of the free agent market this year.  This shows a clear dedication to a certain style of play.  This was touched on briefly by Glen in the video as well and it reminded me that this off-season’s plethora of new talent wasn’t just about filling up holes, reaching the new cap floor or even about making the team deeper in light of the loss of Brad Richards.  It was all of those things, but it was also about the future of the Stars – in my opinion.  Otherwise, why bother signing a grinder for 3-years?  Joe is clearly thinking ahead, even though we as fans tend to think about this year and whether we will be making the playoffs or not.

Thanks to Mark over at Andrew’s DSP we get to look at the line combinations used today and its clear by looking at them that there is a lot of emphasis on systems and learning them more so than finding the duos and trios that are going to run your forward lines.  Here’s a look:

… [visit site to read more]

PEI Day One: Glen Puts the Boys through the Paces - Blackout Dallas - Blackout Dallas - A Dallas Stars blog