With a rare day off work, I had an opportunity to visit Texas Stars practice on Tuesday.
It was a well-timed visit as the Stars welcomed their first amateur tryout of the season, forward Keaton Mastrodonato from Canisius College. Mastrodonato just finished a four-year career where he was team captain and put up 36 points in his senior season of 42 games.
He got a rookie lap at practice with a chorus of enthusiastic stick taps. The process of working an ATO into the lineup is not an easy or quick one. Unlike football where there is a playbook you can go dive into, hockey is a game of fewer set plays and more flow.