(Photo credit:  Scott Paulus)  Perhaps you’ve heard.  Perhaps you haven’t.  Goalie Mark Dekanich has been re-assigned to Milwaukee.

But did he get a fair shake in training camp?  Let’s look at some quotes and some stats.

Prior to last night’s game against the Thrashers in which Anders Lindback played all 60 minutes, the two goalies had played about the same amount of minutes.

Dekanich had 56:58 of ice time, and made 12 saves on just 14 shots.
Lindback had 60:21 of ice time, and made 29 of 30 saves.

Can Dekanich be faulted for not facing nearly as many shots as Lindback?

Prior to last night’s game, here are some sentences we can attribute to Coach Trotz.  (courtesy of the Tennessean)

“I haven’t com­mit­ted to going half the game or two periods and one period, that type of thing.  We’ll see how the game goes. I told them both to be ready to play tonight.  I’d pro­bably give a slight edge to Lind­back just because he’s had more work.  Just a slight edge. For the most part, they’ve made it dif­fi­cult which is exactly what you want.”

Ok, that’s fine.  So they’ll each probably get some ice time against Atlanta….they’ll just see how the game goes.

Well, after two periods, the game was tied 3-3.  Lindback had given up two goals over the final 10 minutes of the 2nd period to give back what was a 2-goal lead.  And when the 3rd period started, Lindback was still in net.

After the game, Coach talked about his reasoning…or at least what he’d like us to believe.

“I thought the plan going in, as I tal­ked to both goa­lies, was Lind­back would play two (periods) and we would see where that took us.  At 3-3, I didn’t think it was fair to put Deks in at that point. Obviously he wants to go in and prove him­self. I thought it was impor­tant that we con­ti­nue to forge forward.”

Didn’t think it was fair to put him in?  Is it more fair to talk about this great battle for the backup goalie position, but not give one of the contenders any ice time?  Since the 9:11 mark of the 2nd period on Friday the 24th, Dekanich has not seen any game action.  Makes you wonder if the decision had been made already.

Trotz continues:

“To me, he is a Chris Mason.  He’s a bull­dog, a great ath­lete, all those things. He’s going to play. I’m not too worried about him not pla­ying at all. He’s a guy that has just got­ten bet­ter and bet­ter. He’s a good pro no mat­ter the cir­cums­tan­ces, here or Milwaukee.”

I think there’s a compliment in there somewhere.  I’m not exactly sure where.  Somewhere?  Maybe?

While it’s easy to point to those things and say that he got a raw deal out of the so-called competition, there is a lot that is unknown to us.  In Milwaukee, we didn’t have the benefit of watching him (or Lindback) practice.  We didn’t have the benefit of being around Mitch Korn as he worked with the goaltenders over the course of the camp.  We don’t know what his attitude was like.  We don’t know how well Pekka Rinne and Lindback have bonded, since they are essentially clones of each other.  But obviously, more than just time-on-ice goes into making roster decisions like this.

While I don’t think Dex got a raw deal, I DO think Coach Trotz is in mid-season form when it comes to Coachspeak.

Ok Roundtable — what do you think?  Did Mark Dekanich get a raw deal in the backup goalie competition?  And if Chet Pickard is the “goalie of the future”, how much ice-time do you think Dex should get with the Admirals while he’s here?

Aaron Sims has a great blog entry about some of the goings-on at camp today…you can check out the full blog here.

Among other things, he broke down the forward lines that practiced today.  Of course, they’ll be a little different tomorrow as some extra bodies will be dressing for the first time.  But it’ll be interesting to see the consistencies over the next week of who is playing with who on a regular basis.

Chad Painchaud – Michael Bartlett – Chris Mueller

Gabriel Bourque – Blake Geoffrion – Ryan Flynn

Kelsey Wilson – Mark Van Guilder – Mark Santorelli

Brett Robinson – Dylan Hunter – Andreas Thuresson

Kevin DeVergilio – Connor Shields – Ryan Thang

Josh Cooper is the man.

He’s the man for many reasons.

First and foremost, he’s the man, because he’s not John Glennon.  Who is NOT the man.

Josh Cooper is the new beat reporter for The Tennessean newspaper, and he’s done an amazing job so far with breaking stories and being on top of things.  He’s a pro on twitter (@JoshuaCooper), and was able to share with us that some players are coming to Milwaukee today.

So be sure to give a warm Milwaukee welcome (or welcome back, depending on the player) to:

Chet Pic­kard
Brett Palin
Teemu Laakso
Grant Lewis
Kel­sey Wil­son
Andreas Thu­res­son
Nick Spaling
Matt Halischuk

Pickard dressed last night, but never saw any action in any of the pre-season games.  Halischuk was the only player from the bunch to register a point in any of the pre-season games…but then again, only 10 of all the players in camp have done so.  Halischuk was tied for tops in camp with one goal and one assist.

Stay tuned…

UPDATE:  Our friends at Section303 are reporting that Linus Klasen is on his way back as well.

The Preds still have not been able to get that elusive third goal in the pre-season, but they were able to get their second win tonight, 2-1 over the Atlanta Thrashers.  You can read a nice recap here…

Chet Pickard suited up, but did not see any action.

Blake Geoffrion was re-assigned to Milwaukee earlier this afternoon, but as of right now, there haven’t been any additional moves announced to send more guys to Milwaukee.  Maybe David Poile and company were caught up with the Monday Night Football game?

Admirals training camp opens Tuesday, and they’ll hit the ice for the first time Tuesday evening.

POINTS FOR DISCUSSION:

– Give me a haiku about the football game.

– Matt Halischuk and Jamie Lundmark have had some nice camps for the Preds so far.  Do you think they either of them have the chance to unseat an incumbent like Jerred Smithson?

Hey hey!

Business first — Hat tip to Dirk at On The Forecheck, who is reporting that Andreas Thuresson and Teemu Laakso have been placed on waivers.  We assume that the intention is that they’d end up being reassigned to Milwaukee.  But they’re out there now, and they can be claimed.

Dirk also takes it further to share that some other former Admirals are in the same boat with their new teams, including Nolan Yonkman, Triston Grant, and sadly, Hugh Jessiman…..who will still have to wait a little bit longer to get that last-in-his-draft-class-monkey off of his back.

Speaking of monkeys, I’m going to be a guest on the Admirals Center Ice Radio Show, tonight at 6 on Sportsradio 1250 WSSP.  It’s a big two hour extravaganza this week, and now that hockey is being played, Aaron and Woj will have LOTS to talk about.  So make it your business to tune in!

Expect some more roster moves later tonight, after the Preds pre-season game against Atlanta.

The Preds started today with 50 guys still in training camp.  They end the day with 38.

Their press release looked a little something like this…

Nashville Predators President of Hockey Operations/General Manager David Poile announced tonight that the club has assigned forwards Gabriel Bourque, Ryan Flynn, Mark Santorelli and Ryan Thang; defensemen Jonathon Blum and Roman Josi; and goaltender Jeremy Smith to Milwaukee (AHL). The Predators also sent forward Taylor Beck back to his junior team (Guelph, OHL) and released forwards Chris Mueller and Mark Van Guilder, and defensemen Scott Ford and Scott Lehman from Professional Tryout Agreements (PTOs).

Absolutely ZERO of that should be unexpected.  I think Josi is the only name on the list who may have been able to force his way onto the Preds opening night roster with a good training camp, but injuring one’s wrist in practice kind of put the damper on that.  And while not technically “assigned to Milwaukee”, Ford, Mueller, Van Guilder, and Lehman should be heading to town as well.

Still in camp for the Preds :

22 forwards, including  Jonas Andersson, Blake Geoffrion, Matt Halischuk, Linus Klasen, Sergei Kostitsyn, Jamie Lundmark, Cal O’Reilly, Nick Spaling, Andreas Thuresson, and Kelsey Wilson.

12 defensemen including Cody Franson, Aaron Johnson, Teemu Laakso, Grant Lewis, Brett Palin, Ryan Parent, Alexander Sulzer.

And 4 goaltenders, including Mark Dekanich, Anders Lindback, and Chet Pickard.

Admirals training camp opens on Tuesday, and I’m sure we’ll see some more names heading our way before then.  But for now, with Jeremy Smith in town, that bumps Aaron Sims and Wojo down to numbers 2 and 3 on the goalie depth chart.

The score won’t make Gary Bettman all that happy, but the end result was a win for the Preds. 2-1 over the Canes.

Again, our travel budget is….how you say…..minimal. So we couldn’t make it to Raleigh for the game. But you can read up about what happened in places like this.

Nuts and bolts are here.

Recap from On The Forecheck.

The view from Canes Country.

Section 303 looks ahead to tonight’s game against the Caps.  And they notice that there’s one player who will be playing his third game in three days…one of our favorites too.

Again, it doesn’t look like Dekanich was really tested that much, as he only faced 7 shots.  The one that beat him was on a 5×3 power play that the Canes reporter described as trickling by Dex (we’ve seen our fair share of those).  So tough to say how he helped or didn’t help his cause.  Lindback stopped all the shots he faced (10), and will get to play another half game tonight.

Honestly, I’m a little disappointed that they could only get two goals off of Justin Pogge — with one of them being gift-wrapped by Pogge himself.  The Admirals went 3-1 against him last season, and he didn’t look very sharp until the 4th game (a 2-1 decision over Chet Pickard).

He won't be sending Nick Boynton a Christmas card this year.  But it's good to see that his teammates have his back -- even in pre-season.