9-28 Preview – Projected Lineup + Reign Returners, Defensive Camp Battle, Bjornfot Quotes
# 9-28 Preview – Projected Lineup + Reign Returners, Defensive Camp Battle, Bjornfot Quotes
# Contributors
# Players
# Staff
# Summary
The Kings and Sharks will square off for the second time in four days, as the two teams meet in Ontario for the inaugural Empire Classic.
# Notes and Quotes
# Matt Roy
Lots of good memories from Ontario, the community there was great and the fans were really passionate. My first year there, we made it to the playoffs so that was pretty fun playing there. I had great coaches and great teammates, which made it a lot of fun. It was a really great experience.
When you’re playing in the AHL, you’re competing against your teammates [for callups] but you’re also competing with them. It’s cool that a lot of us have now come up together to the Kings.
# Todd McLellan
The one thing about Blakey is that he takes a lot of input in from the people that he has around him and I think that’s a real good quality. He has to make decisions based on roster spots, he has to make decisions based on salary cap, decisions based on performance, on waivers, on injuries, sometimes it’s combinations and pairs.
That’s an option, we’re allowed to have 23 roster spots. We don’t know who will be healthy or who won’t be at that roster date. Any combination of 23 we can come up with is an option.
I think when you get to the point where decisions are hard and there’s huge debate over them, that’s a good spot for an organization. It’s not just on the blue line, there are some forwards too, but when we’re doing that, we are potentially in a good spot. It’s up to us to produce at that point.
# Tobias Bjornfot
Yeah, I think it’s going good so far. There’s a little more structure and it’s more intense. In the summer, there’s not anyone watching you and here in camp, it’s more intense and there’s more structure.
I do like to play in preseason games, it’s nice to get to get you going and get more into game shape. In Sweden, we used to play a lot of preseason games, we had 5-10 then, so I’m used to playing in a longer preseason.
I worked on my strength, getting stronger and faster, all of that kind of stuff. We’ve got a lot of time during the offseason to work on that. I just wanted to come in ready and prepared for camp, bring my A game to camp.