Dater’s Daily: Shane Bowers Off To Good Preseason Start For Avalanche

MUNICH – Guten tag again from Germany, where I’ll be for another couple days of a long-planned trip with my wife. Brennan Vogt continues to hold down the CHN fort in my stead. I’ll be back in the building for Avalanche games and practices later in the week. The Internet works just fine here too, so I was able to see some Avalanche highlights from last night, so I’ll chime in with some observations and other stuff. It’s eight hours ahead here, so this is a good activity to do right before bed:

• I thought it was a great start to the preseason for Avalanche prospect Shane Bowers. He scored one of the Avalanche’s two goals in a 3-2 OT split-squad loss in Minnesota. Bowers scored on his only shot on goal in the game and laid a couple of hits on opponents. I think he wants to be more physical as a player moving forward, and that was a good start.
• Spencer Smallman scored the other goal in the game in Minny.
• Alex Galchenyuk, in on a PTO, had one shot on net and no points in 16:59 of action.
• Justus Annunen stopped 33-of-36 shots in a losing cause. The Wild played a mostly veteran lineup. Colorado managed 25 shots on goal.
• Nice to see Alex Beaucage get a goal for the Avalanche in the other game, against Vegas.
• Looking around the league, it was nice to see old friend Conor Timmins play again in Arizona. He was a plus-2 with an assist in the Coyotes’ game last night.
• Johnny Gaudreau had three assists in his first preseason game with Columbus.
• Flyers goalie Carter Hart is hurt already (Philly Hockey Now)
• Our new site, Dallas Hockey Now, has some optimism about a better offense with the Stars this season (Dallas Hockey Now)
• Brock Boeser will miss 3-4 weeks for the Canucks (Vancouver Hockey Now)
• So, I wore a real German outfit, with lederhosen, shirt and hat, to Oktoberfest today. My beer intake was very modest, but there were some very, very inebriated customers otherwise. This is the first Oktoberfest in more than two years, so people have been ready to party.
• We took a rickshaw through the English Garden in Munich. A very lovely place, bigger than Central Park.
• I’ve had my share of bratwurst here already.
• Yesterday, we toured a castle in Salzburg, Austria, that dates back to 1067. We also took a cooking class, learning to make apple streudel. Mine came out wunderbar! Salzburg is the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Not quite as impressive musically as Kiss, but he’s still pretty good.