The Tampa Bay Lightning held their annual prospect camp at the Brandon Ice Sports Forum over the last five days. I had the opportunity to take advantage of the holiday and spent the long weekend at the rink. Development camp is a great opportunity for fans to meet newly drafted prospects and see the progression of those taken in years past. The skill on the ice speaks to the Lightning’s success with scouting and drafting these young men. This camp is part of their continued effort to foster these kids and give them the best means to succeed at a higher level. (Photos/Susan Ferlita)
Friday’s session started early with the larger groups split up further for power skating sessions. Fans who have attended the last few camps are familiar with Barb
Underhill. A former world champion figure skater, Underhill is currently one of the preeminent skating consultant for a number of NHL teams. Players work to improve their stride and make their game more efficient. Lightning fans needed to look no further than defensive prospect Slater Koekkoek to see Underhill’s methods at work. He definitely skates with power, but is incredible smooth and fluid at the same time.
Jonathan Drouin was definitely a marquee name for this week’s camp and he certainly didn’t disappoint. He flew through power skating with speed and finesse. Saturday saw the ice transformed into little obstacle courses of broken sticks, tiny traffic cones, and pucks. The players were tasked with carrying the puck back and forth around, under, and even over the obstacles. We expected Drouin to shine with this type of drill, but seeing it in person is pretty breathtaking. His hands were fast, smooth, and accurate. His mitts are so silky, a few of my Vines went viral.
Saturday saw the beginning of the now traditional three on three tournament.
Brian Hart, Artem Sergeev, Saku Salminen, and Dan Renouf AKA Team Stamkos were standouts on the first day of competition. Hart and Sergeev showed a ton of chemistry together and produced four goals in the third game of the tournament. Tanner Richard and newly drafted Ben Thomas also had four goals in the third game for Team Carle. The youth movement that comprised Team Filppula ended up winning the tournament and trophy early Sunday afternoon. The winning squad was comprised of newly drafted Anthony DeAngelo and Brayden Point as well as Brendan O’Donnell and Jeff Costello.
As always, a ton of stuff happened. Bullet points are the only way to attack some of them.
– Tanner Richard had a really great camp. He was everywhere during the three on three bouts. He and Saku Salminen were battling for puck possession pretty steadily. Richard did not give up. Drouin may have shined brightly in some of the skill areas, but Richard wasn’t far off when it came to the shooting and stick handling drills.
-The young defensemen really impressed. Guys like Salminen, Dylan Blujus and Dan Milan have come so far from previous years. 2014 draft pick Dominik Masin has really good instincts and great skating ability as well. It will be interesting to see him in a year when he’s filled in a bit. This didn’t stop him from throwing the body a bit during the tournament.
– Clay Witt, the goalie native to Brandon, Florida, was extremely impressive. He carried a shutout during the first two tournament games on Saturday. The Bolts are definitely deep in goaltending in their system but it’s really cool seeing a hockey player from the Sunshine State getting notice from an NHL club.
-Andrei Vasilevskiy was loving life this morning. The kid was having a tremendous amount of fun rotating in net with Witt during the shooting drills. He had some pretty spectacular saves during the tournament as well.
-Henri Ikonen continues to command attention after being a surprise last year. He
may be a little ways off, but there’s a pretty high skill level. The same goes for Joel Vermin. Both speedy forwards whose instinct is to go to the net.
We’ll probably see a few of these guys at the main training camp in the fall. Drouin has definitely progressed from last year and that’s plain to see. He came back with something to prove and that’s to show he can crack the NHL roster come October. He has quite a good chance of doing that after watching him the last three days.
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