Well we are less than 24 hours from kick off to the BRHL season 3, and GM Barbosa has to be satified with the turn of event this summer with his Nashville Preds. After just squeaking out of the playoff picture in year one yet making it to the AHL final, season 2 was more of a disaster and low point to this great GM and city.
Thus comes the Entry draft and this is where the team is hopefully taking a great turn towards the future. Mired with 4 first round draft picks, it still did end up with 4 of them however they were able to move up to grab to top 10 picks and thus still keeping the guys they had targetted in site.
Moving to the pre season Mr. Barbosa knew the chemistry wasn't quite there yet as he tinkered with the lineup and possibly looking for ways to score more goals as they were one of the leagues worst last season. Gaining the services of Kronvall may help provide a spark into their offence not to mention getting a rearguard that is signed for the future and is set to perhaps equal Mathieu Schnieder's Norris trophy season that Nashville had in season 1.
At a press conference held one hour ago this is what Mr. Barbosa had to say.
Tomorrow marks our 3rd season and although we took 2 steps backwards last year we feel that this season we will be taking 3 giant leaps forwards, I have had a closed room discussion and if the pre season has any indication we can if we believe make the playoffs. With that being said Gm Barbosa also laid out his opening day lineup to the media.
In Goal we will be starting with Vesa Toskala, however we do know that knocking on that door for an opportunity will be Gerber.
On defence
Nicklas Kronvall will be paired with a likely surprise Sandis Ozolinsh, he is showing that at age 36 he still has a bit more left in him to compete Zidlicky and Paetsch will be our 2nd unit. Our shutdown line will be Montador and Kukkonan and other teams will take notice of their physical presence infront of the net they will not back down easily. Unfortunately rookie Ryan O'bryne will be heading to the minors for more play time and conditioning and will be called up if need be.
On forward Our number 1 and hopefully good scoring line Marcus Naslund and Radim Vrbata will team up with Michael Nylander and will get the bulk of the chances to put the puck in the net Our free agent signing Craig Conroy will center line 2 between Todd Bertuzzi, and Pascal Dupuis. Betts, Kopecky, and Pisani will be a 3rd line which is definately a weakness. and wont be seeing that much ice time but they will have to earn it with hard work will be line 4... Mike York, Bates Battaglia, and Michel Ouellet.
And with that these are your 2008-09 Nashville Preds, we will work hard each and every game and hopefully this will be the team that will lead us to our first post season.
