With the season underway the town of Winnipeg is thrilled with the start of the season. A quick start to the season at 8-2-1 the team is meshing very well to begin the season with an incredible amount of different line combinations and injury's/fatigue/fight's/suspensions in a 11 game span.. With 28 players and 3 different goalies starting the season it has been very interesting as the team tries to battle a horrible schedule and travel combination in defending their back to back titles.

With the team captain and leader Zdeno Chara having only played in 5 games so far this season the team has played very well during his injury.. The injury has allowed coach Boudreau the chance to use 11 different guys this year on the backend with mainstay's E.Johnson, D.Byfuglien, T.Peckham, Z.Bogosian all having played the full 11 games the 3rd pairing has seen D.Meech, T.Chorney, M.Katic, J.Falk, J.Moore, J.Corvo all seeing some action as well.. With Chara returning from injury and the team having taken practice this morning they had Chara-Bogosian, Johnson-Byfuglien, Peckham-M.Katic as the pairings during drills.
The G.M had this to say about his D-Core so far this season, "With the injury and fatigue to the top guys so far, we have had to depend heavily on E.Johnson and the kid has responded well, he's averaging 26:22 a night playing PP, PK and playing against every top line he is still a + player. Were concerned the league's refs are targeting our young D-Man Theo Peckham with 62PIM's in 156 minutes on the ice its hard to understand how he could be penalized that much. With 11 games behind us we are planning to spread the ice time out a lot more now even strength. We have some elite special teams guys in Chara-Byfuglien-Peckham-Johnson all bringing great ratings to our units. With the depth we have proven to have down in the farm is a great thing to know that come the playoffs we can handle an injury or two."
With the news coming down today after a hearing with the BRHL2 office Alex Ovechkin is suspended for 1 game after losing his cool during a 5-2 comeback win for the Jets last night over division rival Florida, many in the media are now wondering what the lines would be.. During the morning skate the team had rolled out lines that featured Ovechkin on a line with bruising winger Chris Stewart after his first goal of the year last night the game winner and Center John Tavares. The second unit had Rick Nash, Ales Hemsky between the teams leading scorer in Patrice Bergeron. The checking line had Clarke MacArthur, Chris Higgins between Brian Little. On the energy line Colin Wilson centered Matt Calvert and Trent Hunter.

Team G.M Shuck said this about his forwards and their start to the season, "We wouldn't be anywhere near the spot we are without the addition of Patrice Bergeron during the offseason, the Triple Gold + Cup champion has paced us with 14 points in his first 11 games in town. Winning 62% of his face-offs has helped us all around the ice. Hemsky has fed off his defensive play and started the season on a PPG pace as well, We have shifted Rick Nash to join them and hope that a couple less minutes a night help him out.."

The G.M continued on about his goalies, "With some error in the lines early in the year Curtis Sanford got to play in two starts for the team and posted a 1.44GAA and 946 save% in his two Wins in the pro's. The two regular's Ryan Miller and Brent Johnson have split starts to begin the season as we feel great about the ratings of Brent. Ryan has played really well and will continue to get the tough starts if he is 100%. With a 3-1-1 record, 1.99 GAA, and 944 save% he is showing the Conn Smythe form from last year's Cup.. Brent being a waiver draft addition has played very well also at 3-1 and 920 save% with a 2.42GAA we are extremely happy with the play we have gotten between the pipes. "

Overall the transition to Winnipeg has been a fairly smooth one for the back to back Champs as the fans and media all are pleased to see the 8-2-1 start in the pro's and a 7-1-3 start down on the farm aswell..