Like DFC said,Černák probably has a good chance still, at least to be the first call up. Masin has had trouble with taking unnecessary, dumb penalties.
Černák will be seen again in tonight's game so they are definitely giving him a closer look.
Joseph and Katchouk back in. So far, in each his two games, Joseph's line has been our best. Also our most dangerous penalty killer. He puts defenses on their heels with his north-south game, and gives us time to set up in front of the net. I think he's also been our best transition player. (I'm biased, shoot me, but he's on the team, IMO, and he's gonna put up 35-40 points.)
I think the advantage Cernak has is Cooper, it seems, prefers to err on the side of carrying more D than forwards. That, combined with how little faith we seem to have in Koekkoek, to me, says Cernak's probably going to make the team. I don't think we regard him highly enough to worry TOO much about his minutes, especially when you consider how little we seem to care about Koekkoek's minutes, and, at one point, we obviously valued him pretty highly. The other point in Cernak's favor is I think, of our six regulars, Dan Girardi is the guy we're probably going to want to pull from the lineup, both because he's likely to be our worst defenseman and also because he's the guy most likely to need maintenance days. Add all of that up, and I think it outweighs the benefits of sending Cernak back to Syracuse.
Good to see Yan finally in a game, although I suspect he'll be one of the cuts tonight regardless, and I wish we'd gotten him into more.
And, with how shaky Vasy was in Game #1, I kind of want to get him back between the pipes to make sure he finds his legs before the season starts. As good as Vasy is, he's kind of finicky. His A game is world class and his B game is barely NHL level, and it seems like anything can knock him off his game. BUT one of the things that clearly doesn't knock him off his game is pressure, so it's not a thing we have to worry about long-term, IMO. Just a 24 year-old goalie's growing pains.