Tom’s Daily: Fleury and Lehner to Split; Roy Ready To Go

Tom’s Daily: Fleury and Lehner to split time; Roy ready to step into full time role; Dallas won’t start on time; Pittsburgh won’t have fans; more

VGK

It looks like Robin Lehner and Marc-Andre Fleury will open the season splitting time in the crease. That’s no real surprise here, as we’ve been talking about how important a two-goalie rotation will be now more than ever. (Las Vegas Review-Journal)

Is Nicholas Roy ready for a full time role with the Golden Knights? (Las Vegas Sun)

NHL

We knew this was going to happen. I talked about it in my Talking Puck podcast last week. We know the league is going to have outbreaks. But how much time will teams miss? How many games? Will a buffer week be enough to compensate? Probably not. The outbreak among the Dallas Stars (and now Dallas Mavericks of the NBA) isn’t getting better. Dallas won’t practice today, the season opening games have been pushed back, and who knows when they’ll actually get on the ice again. (Sportsnet)

Looks like the Pittsburgh Penguins are among the teams that will not allow fans, at least to start. (PittsburghHockeyNow)

Patric Hornqvist finally rolls into Florida Panthers camp. I know Patric pretty well from our time in Nashville, and he’s the guy you want in that room. Always excited to be at the rink, always willing to pay the price and lead by example. (FloridaHockeyNow)

How impactful will NHL taxi squads be? I think they’ll be more important than we know. These guys will be the difference between completing a season or not. And I think they should be expanded to 10 players, eight skaters and two goalies. (TSN)

Hockeyverse

I’m just seeing this after the weekend, but the San Jose Sharks have left traditional, over-the-air radio behind in favor of an app based streaming model. As a play-by-play guy you can probably guess where I stand on the issue and why I think it’s not good on many levels. There are advantages to the app for sure, and having it exist alongside terrestrial radio is the best of both worlds. Sharks fans – for the most part – are not thrilled. (SanJoseHockeyNow)

Jim Playfair’s son Dylan has become quite the actor. He’s starred in the Mighty Ducks and more recently in Letterkenny (which is hilarious if you haven’t watched it. But you do need to speak either hockey or Canadian.) Here’s a nice feature piece on the young actor. (Sporting News)