Does this board live?

[apollocreed32]

There are possible lines to consider (bolland #2 center), do you think hossa and carcillo will be able to immediately contribute as if they were never injured, will our special teams improve, can we get past the first round with these goalies, will we win the division with the emergence of st louis?? Where is everybody???

[TNBT]

There are possible lines to consider (bolland #2 center)

Personally, I'm a little hesitant to move Bolland from that 3rd line C spot. I know that he has the talent to be a really solid, two-way 2nd line guy, but I love having him anchoring the 3rd line along with guys like Shaw who also love to play the feisty, aggressive style of hockey.

do you think hossa and carcillo will be able to immediately contribute as if they were never injured

I think your guess is as good as mine. On the positive side, they have had a lot longer than they would have expected to get their bodies right again, but as we have all seen, different people can suffer similar injuries and some come back really well, and some never make it back to where they used to be. This is especially true in Hossa's case, given his was a head injury. I think when it comes to Hossa, the big challenge will be in his head. If he can get his mind right and be able to play hard without worrying about getting hurt again, then I think he'll be fine. Carcillo should be fine also, as I doubt any lingering fears would stop a human wrecking-ball guy like that.

will our special teams improve, can we get past the first round with these goalies

I think it's way too early to be able to answer this sort of question. As with every team, we'll have to see how players mesh in camp, how healthy players are throughout the season, etc before we can really know what the on-ice product will look like. When it comes to the goalies, I'm not as down on Crawford as a lot of other people are. I think he has been inconsistent, but I think that if we can put a quality team in front of him (especially the defensemen performing to their best) that he can be a really solid starting goalie.

will we win the division with the emergence of st louis??

Like I said above, I think it's anyone's guess as to how each team handles the time off, the short camp and the condensed schedule.

Where is everybody???

I've pretty much been the only one posting around here in a while, but with the lockout over, I expect that we'll get most of the old regulars back. We can always use more traffic though, so I'm hoping that we can get some more fans on-board now that we're going to have some actual hockey again.