Just a short drive down I-40

The Scorpions get their first preseason test tonight within the warm confines of the Amarillo Civic Center. The bus is probably somewhere on I-40 now, but I dropped in earlier today to watch morning skate. Nothing too different worth noting. Once again, the top line looked phenomenal. John Mazzei has great vision and a serious release on his wrister. Pretty sure Murph and Peter Ambroziak are expecting a lot from him this year. In my mind, he has as much talent and potential as any rookie I can remember coming into Scorps camp.

What I caught of the skate was pretty laid back. There were a few more breakout drills and some work with the d-men on keeping in clearing attempts at the blueline. Then practice ended with everyone's favorite: breakaway practice. As Aaron MacInnis noted, there is no overtime period in the preseason -- everything goes straight to the shootout.

It looked to me like the top two lines are set for this weekend. I figure that Murph will do some juggling to see who plays best with who in that checking line role. Here are the top two lines as best I can tell:

Line 1:

Craig Macdonald, Chris Robertson, John Mazzei

Line 2:

Jamie Herrington, Mitch Stephens, Josh Paquette

As far as the third line goes, Murph had I believe Ryan Sullivan and Kyle McCullough together on Wednesday with Sam Bowles as the pivot. That left Shawn Doucet and Matt Cosmos as the odd men out. Personally, I really like what I've seen from Doucet -- he strikes me as a very capable guy to take Ross McCain's spot. He seems to have a great work ethic and, like McCain, he posseses the offensive prowess to make some big plays when the Scorps really need them. I think the line of Doucet, Sullivan and McCullough could ultimately be the combination of speed, skill and grit that Murph's looking for in a checking line.

On another note, I also chatted with Andrew Martin for a bit about AHL camp and the potential for call-ups. It sounds like he made a very good impression on the coaching staff in San Antonio (much to the delight of Ray Edwards, I'm sure). As I understand it, Marty is first in line for a call-up to the AHL should there be a goaltending vacancy. Currently, the Rampage have Al Montoya and Josh Tordjman between the pipes, while the Phoenix Coyotes have Ilya Bryzgalov and Mikael Tellqvist. Bryzgalov is an absolute workhorse, and while Tellqvist proved to be a capable backup last year, apparently the Coyotes organization is pretty high on Montoya, a 6th overall pick in 2004. What I hear is that they're trying to move Tellqvist to free up a little more cap room and get Montoya into the NHL as a backup. Should this happen, Tordjman would take over the starting job in San Antonio and Marty would more than likely be called up in relief.

Now this is where it gets interesting...

Martin's main competition for the backup job in San Antonio happens to be this guy, whom the Rampage reassigned to the Arizona Sundogs last week. Fortunately, Martin has the full scouting report on Gistedt, which from the sounds of it was not all that impressive. Still, there's plenty of potentially interesting drama to playout over the course of the season, depending on how things pan out.