That was a pretty nice debut. I am very happy for our young goaltender and we all believe he will be a big part of our future. He is a dominant goaltender already down in Hershey and to win 2 to 1 in Hockey Night in Canada is indeed a big thrill.

He was remarkably calm in net. He played much focused, very safe hockey and he didn’t get rattled at all. He is a very athletic goalie but he is also very astute and very analytic in his preparation and style of play.

If you remember, we received the first round pick that we used to draft Varlamov in the Brendan Witt trade from Nashville. Witt now plays for the New York Islanders as “he didn’t want to be part of a rebuild.” We drafted Simeon at the 23rd spot and we think he will be a big part of our future. We are loaded up and down the lineup with talent and I am proud of the job our amateur scouts have done in picking terrific young players to come into our system. I am also proud of the folks at Wikipedia who have already updated  Varlamov’s profile with the win last night! (See it here.)

I am also happy for our team. Last week, many fans on our message boards and some media types were quite worried about the notion of our having to play against the Bruins, Senators and Canadians in such a short period of time. We came out of play unscathed and now have the 3rd best record in the East which is really terrific news considering how short handed we have been.