Ten others in fact, expected in Thursday's curtain raiser, that did not appear in Buffalo's season-opening shootout loss to Montreal one year ago:
| Then | Now |
| --- | --- |
| Matt Tennyson | Rasmus Dahlin |
| Evander Kane | Jeff Skinner |
| Jacob Josefson | Tage Thompson |
| Jordan Nolan | Conor Sheary |
| Johan Larsson | Patrik Berglund |
| Seth Griffith | Vladimir Sobotka |
| Benoit Pouliot | Evan Rodrigues |
| Ryan O'Reilly | Casey Mittelstadt |
| Victor Antipin | Casey Nelson |
| Robin Lehner | Carter Hutton |
| Chad Johnson | Linus Ullmark |
Are we stretching the "11" storyline a bit? Sure. Only seven from that list are new to the organization. But the number seven holds a pretty special place around here too.
It may be completely unfair to list the players side-by-side, but it does provide an easy opportunity to at least formulate your own opinion on overall depth.
If you're looking at it strictly from a scoring standpoint, it would be impossible to not have far higher expectations for the "Now" list.
Factor in what will be starting in Rochester this year - Lawrence Pilut, Brendan Guhle, Will Borgen, Rasmus Asplund, Victor Olofsson, Andrew Oglevie, Alex Nylander, and C.J. Smith - and that word - depth - figures prominently once again.
There may be no reason to expect miracles this season. But there are plenty of reasons to pay close attention.
(And please join us for the GMC pregame show tonight at 6:30 p.m. on MSG where Martin Biron, Rob Ray, Rick Jeanneret, Dan Dunleavy and I will preview tonight's matchup.)
