Devils preseason thoughts

October 1, 2008   ·   Hasan   ·   Jump to comments

So the boys won tonight over the Islanders by a tidy 3-0 score with goals from Patrik Elias, Zach Parise and defenseman Anssi Samela to improve their preseason record to 3-2.  What does it all mean?  Well, the easy answer is nothing - since after all, the games won’t count starting next Friday (or sooner for the unlucky teams like the Rangers that have to play overseas games this weekend). 

But of course they do mean something for those like Petr Vrana, still trying to make the team.  Or Fedor Federov, who won’t play for the Devils and has been given permission to seek a trade before the Devils expose him to waivers.

For the established players, in most cases it means shaking off the rust and getting back into game shape.  In the case of newcomers (or rather returnees) Brian Rolston and Bobby Holik, it’s also a chance to get acclimated with your new teammates. 

And for someone like Kevin Weekes, now is the time the poor sap actually gets a chance to play before he resumes his normal occupation of benchwarmer.  At least Weekesie’s shown no ill effects from offseason surgery.

As far as the fans, well we complain and moan about having to pay regular season prices for preseason games and of course it’s unfair, but there are certain advantages to going in the preseason that you don’t get during the regular season.  Fewer people in the bathrooms and at the concession lines, and the ability to use vouchers to get seats you wouldn’t dream of paying $100 or more for during the regular season. 

For example, I used a voucher for the Devils-Rangers game last week and got to sit two rows from the ice.  Normally cost - and the fact that you can’t always see the opposite end of the ice very well - precludes me from actually sitting that close, but for once in a while it is a cool experience to be close enough to make eye contact with Martin Brodeur, to see big hits up close like Parise throwing a hard bodycheck on Brandon Dubinsky that caused one dope in front of me to lose the beer he placed along the boards.  Admittedly I never noticed there was a hole in the boards for professional photographers taking pictures until I saw it a couple sections away.

Believe it or not that was the first preseason game I’d ever been to.  It kinda felt like a minor league game (I’ve been to a few of those), which it is in part because prospects and backups do tend to play, especially early on.  And it’s nice not to really care about the end result, I’m not quite pathological enough to care about our wins and losses, or even the Rangers almost losing to some club team overseas.  I can’t even get excited about my boy Elias scoring almost a handful of goals so far - wake me when he does it later this month - though it is nice that our first line of Elias-Rolston-Gionta seems to have instant chemistry. 

Preseason does bring its own set of tensions though, when Bryce Salvador got in a fight I was smiling on one hand and wincing on the other that our first pairing defenseman would get in a scrap in a preseason game.  Overall it probably is a good sign though, that the Devils aren’t going to be pushed around physically this year the way they were last season.

Still, a preseason game is a nice experience and one that everyone should enjoy at least once.  I have another voucher for Friday, this time I plan on getting a lower bowl seat behind the net, to see how the view is through the netting.