If Oscar Moller can add some muscle to his frame, he has the offensive skills to have star potential as well. As I said in the story, it might be better for his development to go back to Chilliwack this season.

Brian Boyle needs to develop the mean side of his game, but he has the skills to be an impact player, maybe even a second-line center someday.

Teddy Purcell is going to have to develop his physical game a bit more. He has the offensive skills, but i fear that he might get outmuscled for too many loose pucks.

LaBarbera looked really solid in his last pre-season game. His positioning was superb and when he had to make a difficult save (on shots he actually had a chance on), he made the save. Add to that the fact that he came into camp in great physical shape, maybe…just maybe, he’ll turn into a solid number one goalie this year.

As for Ersberg, who knows. We know the kid has the skill, but he hasn’t been the best goalie in training camp. Keep in mind that at the end of last season when he came up, the games were meaningless, so that adds a touch of realism when you consider what he accomplished at the time. Is he capable of that when there’s actually something on the line? That remains to be seen.

However, the important piece of the puzzle is that Dean is able to keep the team together. Based on his dealings with Patrick O’Sullivan I am growing more and more concerned with this. Talent-wise, I am not so worried. But I am worried that given Dean was supposedly let go in SJ for failing to sign Evgeni Nabokov and his struggles to sign O’Sullivan to a contract, keeping all these players will be difficult. What is the point of collecting all this skill if you cannot keep it ?