Maine out of the USCHO Pre-Season Top 20 and ranked #8 out of HE.....not quite what I had envisioned for the program heading into Year #6 with Ben Barr.
Caught my first practice today and middle of the pack in HE seems correct.
Barr was harping on them for a bunch of stuff, including conditioning (yikes?) so have to imagine they're not going to be a finished product by the time they hit the ice with Holy Cross. That's slightly concerning, but not entirely unexpected with how much roster turnover there was this offseason.
Defensively they looked very stout, but not sure there is a single set forward line yet which is a bit worrisome with how out of sync they looked.
Hard to get a proper read on the goaltending because I feel like they didn't really have to do much.
I did like seeing Calvert getting some work with the centers on face-offs (no idea if he had those duties at all in Saskatoon).
Campbell was not on the ice, but was stickhandling off to the side.
Most common D pairings I noted were:
Langlois-Peterson
Usereau-Parekh (these two were locked together all practice)
Krebs-Bales (also played together a bunch)
Lafton-Siciliano (like the way this duo looked)
Langlois-Romaine