Training Camp Day 1 Notes

The Edmonton Oilers opened training camp today at Millenium Place in Sherwood Park. It’s the debut of head coach Dallas Eakins, a fitness fanatic, I half expected to see garbage cans at center ice for rumored bag skate the team was going to receive. There were no garbage cans on the ice, but you could immediatedly see that Eakins wanted to assess player fitness, but with some structure instead of just making players skate laps.

Sprints

There are 58 skaters on the ice for this training camp and they are separated into 3 teams; Gretzky, Messier and Kurri, and they each began their on ice sessions with Dallas Eakins version of sprints. The players started at one end of the ice, skated hard to the other end, stopped the came back the other way. There was a quick rest then off again until each player had completed this 3 times.

Good way to weed out who might be a little off on their fitness from the extended offseason. It was an interesting drill and first I’ll tell you the players that stood out as well conditioned coming in to today. IMO the best out there was Nail Yakupov, while most players were taking a knee at the end of the drill Nail showcased his trademark smile and wasn’t breathing as heavy as most. Veteran defenseman Nick Schutlz looked great out there as well appearing to barely break a sweat. Also performing well was new comer David Perron, Rookies Travis Ewanyk, Martin Gernat and Ryan Martindale, Aging vet Ryan Smyth, and of course Jordan Eberle, Sam Gagner and of course Ryan Nugent-Hopkins who looked no worse for wear after last season was cut short by shoulder surgery.

Most skaters performed well during this drill, it was tough and a lot of the guys were pretty straight legged on their last round. There were a few guys I think stuck out as being behind the eight ball when it comes to conditioning; Mitch Moroz, who missed the rookie tournament due to injury and Ben Eager who did really well on the first sprint but after that looked gassed, not good for a guy trying to earn his spot back with the big club.

You may have noticed that I didn’t mention Taylor Hall; well I was worried for minute because it looked like he was labouring a little during the sprint drill. I wasn’t the only one who noticed it either, there were many people sitting and standing near me that were mentioning the same. I decided to wait on making a decision on what I thought until I say Hall take part in some other drills.

Line Rushes

After one of the teams made it though the sprints, they then had a quick rest , some Gatorade and then moved over the north ice surface. From there Eakins showed them a drill on the white board then had them get to it. They spent 5-10 minutes on each drill then back to the white board for a 2 minute break and on to the next drill.

I mentioned Taylor Hall in the section above on sprints, well all worries were gone as I watched him flying around the ice. He, along with Ryan Martindale, Ryan Jones, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Jordan Eberle looked really good. Eberle’s shot is back it seems as he sniped more than a couple past opposing goalies.

There were some lines that stuck out to me as that we may see tried at the very least during the preseason.

Taylor Hall centering Ryan Smyth and Ales Hemsky; first thing about this line obviously is Hall at center, the trio had a bit of chemistry going. What will be interesting to see is can Ryan Smyth keep up with the fleet footed Hall? Wait and see I suppose.

The other big line of interest to me today was Will Acton centering Mike Brown and Jesse Joensuu. Joensuu is listed as 6.04 and 210 and Brown we all know loves to get involved physically and chuck knuckles. The surprise here might be Acton, but if he can win faceoffs and be play responsibly on the defensive side of the puck then this could be the makings of a decent 4^th line.

Goalies

There are six tenders in camp this year. First on the ice was Devan Dubnyk and Olivier Roy, then the second pairing out was Jason Labarberra and Tyler Bunz. I left before the third pairing was out but it was Richard Bachman and Ty Rimmer.

Goalie coach Freddie Chabot spent about 30 minutes with each group of two running through different drills and then whichever pair was on the ice at the time would stay in goal while Eakins put the forwards and defence through their drills.

I didn’t spend a lot of time paying attention to the tenders but what I did notice was that Dubey looks good making some big saves on 5 v 2 rushes. Tyler Bunz on the other hand looked shakey, and was clearly frustrated more than once after being scored on. I fear we may be seeing Bunz’ last year at training camp, although I hope he can turn it around.

Defence

As has been talked about in length this offseason, there is some depth at this position and player know it. There were not a lot of bad things to say about the D hopefuls today. It’s unfortunate that Anton Belov couldn’t attend due to visa issues and touted prospect Oscar Klefbom is sitting out due to concussion protocols.

The good I noticed was the play of sophomore Justin Schultz, he was making crisp passes leaving the zone and also made many good defensive plays around his own net. Jeff Petry looked good too; it appears he worked on his skating quite a bit this off season as it seems he’s gained a step or two.

As for the new D that are looking to earn a spot on the opening night roster, Darnell Nurse looked like a beast out there. He stopped more than a few good scoring chances during the rushes, has good vision when trying to exit the zone and showed he can jump up on the rush to. This kid is going to be a player some day.

Andrew Ference is clearly going to be a leader on this team as I noticed him spend lots of time talking with other players, both defence and forwards, about what looked like where to be and how to help out during the drills. And everyone he talked to appeared to listen.

Martin Marincin and Taylor Fedun performed well, Martin Gernat was ok (but now all I can think of when I see Gernat is him getting a look at forward). Philip Larsen and Denis Grebeshkov didn’t impress me much either.

First Impressions

Really for me today was about seeing just how Dallas Eakins was going to steer this ship, and so far I am impressed. He is clearly going to demand consistent effort from his players and it appears early as if they are going to buy into the system and hold each other accountable.

But most of all it was great to get out there and watch some hockey, today was hopefully the first day of a long and successful season.

I will be back at training camp tomorrow so make sure to follow me on twitter (@Rustyknuckler) and stay tuned to www.theoilersrig.com for another post tomorrow afternoon or early evening.

Thanks For Reading.