ST. PAUL, Minn. — In training camp, everything is about teaching.
For Tuesday night’s exhibition game in St. Louis against an anticipated roster heavy on actual Blues, the Wild brought a lineup consisting of mostly expected AHL-bound skaters, a teenager in Carson Lambos who will soon return to his Western Hockey League team in Winnipeg and roughly nine skaters who could make the Wild’s opening-night lineup, including only seven expected to actually play Oct. 13 against the New York Rangers.
This is a fringe line-up, so to speak.
It will be quite a test. This is why Dean Evason, his assistants, cut several clips to show the players the positive things the Wild did during Sunday’s defensive effort against The. Chicago Blackhawks. The Wild lost 12 shots during a 3-0 victory. This was helped tremendously by a great game from the Connor Dewar Rossi/Brandon Duhaime lines.
Dewar scored on a short-handed goal breakaway to win the game, while Duhaime scored his second preseason goal in the third period.
Evason was planning to show one of his clips Tuesday night during his prescout. This clip showed a great example neutral-zone checking by that trio.
Evason stated that Dewar would also learn valuable lessons from the video in the neutral zone.
“Dewar’s not prepared for the puck,” Evason said before Tuesday’s game. “He wasn’t thinking that it was coming and it would have been a tap-in.”
Unsolicited, Evason brought up the same play after Sunday’s game.
