Prospects Camp – Halfway Done

Since I took some more quick notes on Sunday at the prospects camp, I might as well post them up. I tried to look at some of the guys that I didn’t on Saturday. I’ll do another write up this coming Saturday to round out the camp and I’ll include some more pictures.

Andrei Loktionov – He was one of the first ones I noticed. I thought he wasn’t going to be able to make it out because of his visa issues, but I guess that was squared away. This morning, one of the drills they worked on was with two forwards and one defender. On one of his turns, he looked like he completely lost control of his limbs and his legs were all over the place. I think he fell twice in a five second span of time. But I’ll just chock it up to this being his second day on the ice here and trying to get acclimated.

Viatcheslav Voinov – I thought he was okay on Sunday, but there’s definitely a lot of room for improvement. He has short, choppy strides and he missed some passes here and there, but that was just his second day on the ice, so I’ll cut him some slack. I haven’t yet seen his nasty side, which apparently is there, so we shall see how he grows this week.

Garrett Roe – I looked at him more on Sunday than on Saturday. I noticed that he’s really quick out of the corners. He was able to get to full speed from a dead stop faster than I thought he could. He shortens his strides and is actually more efficient that way. I also noticed that he was up against Colten Teubert a lot and Teubert isn’t one to back down, even if his opposition is only 5’8”.

Jonathan Quick – His movements weren’t as sharp or fast as Jonathan Bernier’s were/are, but that’s not surprising to me. His stick-handling skills around the back of the net were decent, but his passes out weren’t as hard as I thought they could be. The pucks seemed to be pushed out from the trapezoid rather than passed with urgency. I always think those drills are important because the players are practicing active communication between the defenders and the goaltender. The amount of verbal communication is miniscule, but the two seconds it takes to convey their individual desires is attributable to how fast the subsequent break out is. If you watch Bernier do this drill you can see that his head is on a constant swivel on his two defenders and his passes are done with the right amount of urgency. I just didn’t see that with Quick and ESPECIALLY not with Jeff Zatkoff.

Robert Czarnik – I’m actually noticing him more than I thought I would. I like his frame; he doesn’t have too much weight on his 6-foot frame. But he still looks solid and makes quick stops and is also pretty sharp on his turnarounds. He really doesn’t waste strides like some people… *cough* Zeiler! *cough*.

Geordie Wudrick – I definitely like this kid. He’s got an endless amount of enthusiasm it seems, which I think helps in his explosiveness on his turnarounds. After Sunday’s session was over, he was one of the last guys on the ice just playing around and messing around with lifting the pucks in the air. He was picking them up on his stick and tossing them up for Justin Azevedo to try to slap into the net. I don’t think they were able to get one successfully, but it was nice to watch these guys to that.

All-in-all, I liked what I saw on Sunday. The second group (Gold) will be out on the ice for this week, so we’ll see how they do. I’m bummed to see the first group (Purple) leave; mainly because I can now recognize them by the numbers they were given. Now I have to learn a whole new group of numbers. Annoying, but I’ll get over it.

Good work this week, Purple Group!