so far, so good
This is a different team than the last few years. They've added some grit and size with Ferland, Zykov and Martinook and De Haan has stabilized the second D pair significantly. More than that, they play with more tenacity/intensity. I said in a game thread last night, they play like a team of cloned Rod Brind'Amours. You can really see he's already made a huge impact as the coach especially in terms of effort and conditioning. Center hasn't been a huge issue, although Aho is not proficient in the faceoff circle which cost them a goal Friday night. If you're looking at 1-2 centers around the league, Aho and Staal is not too shabby.
Goaltending will be this team's top weakness by far, so far it's been reasonably good (Mrazek Thursday) to holy crap good (McBackup Friday). Can't really expect that to hold up over the long haul though. Darling, when he comes back, will have to be able to carry the starting load and so far he hasn't shown he's capable of doing that.