2019 Dev Camp has wrapped up which leaves us with no hockey to watch for a brutal two months. So, in the meantime, we’ll have to over-analyze three meaningless scrimmages at City National Arena as if they were the end all be all of the development of the prospects.
Joking, of course, but seriously, here are my takeaways from what I saw at Development Camp this week.
- Safety first
- It starts with Cody Glass. He played in the first period and a half of the first scrimmage and was taken out due to precautionary reasons. No reason to risk him getting hurt in scrimmages against kids he’s already better than. Hopefully it’s nothing serious. Didn’t seem like it was.
- Dylan Ferguson, Marcus Kallionkieli, and Dylan Coghlan were all kept out of scrimmages as well. It’s always disappointing to not see these guys play in the rare chances we get to in person, especially Kallionkieli. He didn’t stand out much in one scrimmage he did play, but if he was hurt, that makes sense as to why.
- 2017 Draft Picks looking like NHLers
- The 2017 Draft will forever be one of the most important in team history. For a club that had just come off the Expansion Draft and had a boatload of picks, they had to cash in on a few. It’s starting to look like they did.
- Jonas Rondbjerg was the most consistent and best player in camp for me. His two-way game stands out when you really key in on him. He’s a tremendous forechecker and is really good along the walls in all three zones. He’ll start the season in Chicago, but I’ll go on record with the bold prediction that he plays a game in a VGK uniform in 2019-20.
- Jack Dugan was a close second to Rondbjerg, constantly making things happen when he was on the ice. He’s turned into a wrecking ball and it’s fun to watch him play in the offensive zone. The dude is relentless in his pursuit to get the puck back. The one thing I was missing was the finish. He scored a beauty on a breakaway but there were four or five other chances I thought to myself, that could have been a goal, and they weren’t. When they first got him I wasn’t sure what to think, last year he started to make me think he had a shot, now I’m willing to say I’d be surprised if he isn’t an NHLer at some point.
- Lucas Elvenes started to look like the player I read about when they got him. His vision is incredible on the ice and there’s no pass he can’t make. He’s mentioned to me in the past that the smaller ice has taken him some time to get used to and you are starting to see it. He finally looks comfortable on the puck and when it’s on his stick something good is bound to happen.
- I wanted to see a bit more out of Jake Leschyshyn, Ben Jones, and Nick Campoli. There were moments for all three, no doubt, and there’s no question each seems further along than they’ve been in the past, but I just didn’t see the flash that made me say, that kid’s going to the NHL one day out of any of the three. Of course, they’ll two of the three will be heading to Chicago and the other back to NCAA (Campoli), which will give them much more of a chance to keep taking the steps.
- Love me some Pavel
- I enjoy skilled players. Russian players tend to be very skilled. Thus, I tend to like Russian players., but I really like Pavel Dorofeyev a lot. His ability to hold onto the puck while advancing it into more dangerous places on the ice than where he got it is impressive, especially for an 18-year-old. Pretty much every time he touched the puck there was danger for the defense. This is also talking about a kid who has hardly ever played on North American sized ice. Wait until you see the updated prospect rankings, I’m super high on this guy, to say the least.
