Campin' road trip

Cough mostly suppressed and pee wee projects done, sneaked down to the Island this morning, mostly to put together some kinda advance for Saturday (well, Saturday’s game, Friday’s paper); also collected stuff for a future story. A thought or two:

–As noted by several, including this Katie Strang tweet, there’s some buzz around Aaron Ness’ camp. Which isn’t said to be read as a knock on Matt Donovan or Calvin de Haan or anybody else; just that Ness has been particularly good.

–Brent Thompson, for one, is glad to have an extended stint with the big club, rather than a split camp where he’d have been up here for almost a week already. “I’ve been learning about Cappy, getting a feel for the staff,” he said. “I’m learning about the players, too,” and he means everybody, from the big names up top to all of the guys that’ll be here next week. Lots of different players have stood out for various reasons, he said; mentioning things like Frans Nielsen’s work habits, Mark Streit’s speed and ability, the young defensemen and their daily improvement, the (six) goaltenders… He could have gone on, I’m sure. I asked how he’ll watch these last two games, if he can use them at all to try to get a handle on what his lineup might look like, and he said that’s kind of tough. “There are jobs available,” he said. Too much would depend on decisions that haven’t been made yet.

–Wounded Jeremy Colliton and Rhett Rakhshani were, at least, walking. Both were trying to stay positive; from those two, you’d expect nothing different. Rakhshani had an MRI on the knee in the morning and was hoping his injury wouldn’t turn out too serious. Colliton’s still not skating from the groin injury last week.

–All five players on waivers cleared, but Jack Capuano said he expected them to play this weekend. Obviously no sense in sending them to Bridgeport when there’s no Bridgeport camp.

Michael Fornabaio

Campin' road trip

Cough mostly suppressed and pee wee projects done, sneaked down to the Island this morning, mostly to put together some kinda advance for Saturday (well, Saturday’s game, Friday’s paper); also collected stuff for a future story. A thought or two:

–As noted by several, including this Katie Strang tweet, there’s some buzz around Aaron Ness’ camp. Which isn’t said to be read as a knock on Matt Donovan or Calvin de Haan or anybody else; just that Ness has been particularly good.

–Brent Thompson, for one, is glad to have an extended stint with the big club, rather than a split camp where he’d have been up here for almost a week already. “I’ve been learning about Cappy, getting a feel for the staff,” he said. “I’m learning about the players, too,” and he means everybody, from the big names up top to all of the guys that’ll be here next week. Lots of different players have stood out for various reasons, he said; mentioning things like Frans Nielsen’s work habits, Mark Streit’s speed and ability, the young defensemen and their daily improvement, the (six) goaltenders… He could have gone on, I’m sure. I asked how he’ll watch these last two games, if he can use them at all to try to get a handle on what his lineup might look like, and he said that’s kind of tough. “There are jobs available,” he said. Too much would depend on decisions that haven’t been made yet.

–Wounded Jeremy Colliton and Rhett Rakhshani were, at least, walking. Both were trying to stay positive; from those two, you’d expect nothing different. Rakhshani had an MRI on the knee in the morning and was hoping his injury wouldn’t turn out too serious. Colliton’s still not skating from the groin injury last week.

–All five players on waivers cleared, but Jack Capuano said he expected them to play this weekend. Obviously no sense in sending them to Bridgeport when there’s no Bridgeport camp.

Michael Fornabaio