Impressions from the first day of the Red Wings’ summer development camp ’18

The Red Wings’ top prospects began their 5-day summer development camp on Tuesday, at Little Caesars Arena’s BELFOR Training Center (a.k.a the team’s practice rink).

Teams Lindsay and Howe arrived at the rink early–Team Lindsay arrived at 7 AM, and the players didn’t leave until after 4 PM–and the day started with more goaltending coaches on the ice than goaltenders.

Patrik Rybar and Keith Petruzzelli made brief appearances, and Filip Larsson (groin) didn’t dress, so it was a very busy day for Jesper Brattstrom, Jesper Eliasson, Joren van Pottelberghe and Kaden Fulcher, who engaged in the majority of on-ice work.

So Wings goalie coaches Jeff Salajko, Brian Mahoney-Wilson and the Wings’ European goaltending coach (I believe his last name is Swoch) worked with Griffins coach Ben Simon and Toledo Walleye coach Dan Watson, assistant coach Andy Delmore, director of player development Shawn Horcoff and assistant director of player development Daniel Cleary as the goalies warmed up prior to Team Lindsay’s practice. That’s a lot of bodies on the ice and not so many goaltenders, but the coaches made it work.

For both the goaltenders and players, I’d suggest that the emphasis for the day was about fundamentals and layering. The goaltenders spent a significant amount of time working on their t-pushes, both forward and backward, slinking along the bluelines and up and down the ice as their goaltending coaches critiqued them. The goalies were also introduced to some backhand puckhandling a little early, and for the bigger gents especially (Victor Brattstrom is 6’5,” as is Keith Petruzzelli), the basic drills were enough to cause them a little bit of cognitive dissonance.

The players hit the ice 20 minutes after the goaltenders, and coach Simon was in barking form for most of the day, with Shawn Horcoff picking up the vocal slack.

Unless you’d like me to do so, I’m going to put a little less emphasis on drills, at least for today, and focus more on getting to know the players a bit…

In no small part because the drills today weren’t as demanding as the hockey calculus that we’ll be seeing on Thursday and Friday. 1-on-0, 2-on-0, 2-on-1 and 3-on-1 drills dominated the day, with the emphasis on getting the players skating, looping back, gapping up defensively (i.e. closing the gap between the defensive player and the attacking player) and some “turning and burning” (gapping up while giving the attacking player a skating start, which did not turn out so well for the defenders).

As per usual, players were encouraged to go to the net and stay there to form layered screens in front of the goaltenders, but advanced puck-tipping techniques were confined to Team Howe’s afternoon sessions with the Power Edge Pro skill-tutor devices, and the forwards and defensemen were split up for 30-minute sessions to keep things from going wacky.

The best drills of the day were the last ones: toward the west end of the ice, players battled for pucks 2-on-2 from the blueline in to the front of one net, and at the east end, the nets were set up “street hockey” style, in tight, with skaters grinding it out 1-on-1 in front of the goaltenders. Both drills transpired from coach’s whistle to coach’s whistle, and because the players were allowed to engage physically and really lean on each other, their competitive instincts came out to play.

In terms of initial player impressions, on a team-by-team and player-by-player basis:

Team Lindsay

Forwards:

#15 Jonatan Berggren: At a listed 5’10” and 181 pounds–and standing more like 5’8″ and 170–Berggren isn’t going to wow anyone with his size, but he was ranked as a first-round pick because he is a superb skater who can give-and-go with the best of ’em. A better passer than shooter, Berggren was a little easy to push around, but for his first day, that’s to be expected.

#20 Nicolas Guay**: A Drummondville Voltigeurs forward and invite, I didn’t see that much from the 6’1,” 183-pound forward. I hate to go from super-detailed to, “Meh, not much there,” but that’s the truth.

#45 David Pope: The turning-pro 6’3,” 198-pound forward has put a massive amount of weight on a once 160-pound frame, and Pope has put a ton of work into becoming a near-elite-level sniper. Pope has a superb arsenal of slap, snap and wrist shots, and he gets his shot off quickly. He’s a good skater who is much stronger on his skates than he once was, and as Pope prepares to make his AHL debut at 24, the work he’s put in since his draft year is paying off. He’s going to have a short developmental curve, however, so he’s someone who bears watching.

#64 Zach Gallant: Gallant stands at 6’2″ and a stout 198 pounds, and the Peterborough Petes forward’s pluck and jam impress me. He’s a speedy skater who can lug the puck up ice with authority, but whether he has more than a grinder’s skill set remains to be seen as he’s still learning and growing.

#70 Jack Adams: The Union College sophomore still looked like a one-trick pony despite his massive 6’5,” 204-pound listed size–a goal-scoring pony. Like David Pope before him, Adams has a massive wingspan, leg-span at that, and a nose for the net. The rest of him remains quite raw, however,

#78 Taro Hirose**: The 21-year-old Michigan State invite is listed at 5’10” and 160 pounds, and that might be a bit generous. Hirose showed a lot of speed, and given that he posted 12 goals and 30 assists for 42 points over the course of 36 sophomore year games, there may be some skill there…But he was relatively bland on the first day.

#82 Colt Conrad**: Another NCAA invite, the 5’10,” 187-pound Conrad played for Western Michigan this past season, and he was fast but blended in with the pack. Posted 27 points in 26 games this past season.

#84 Otto Kivenmaki: It was just a first glance at the 5’8,” 154-pound (legitimately-listed) Assat Pori forward, but I liked what I saw. Speedy, plucky and willing to battle for the puck, Kivenmaki posted a point per game in the Finnish J20 league, and he seemed to have good hands, a nice pass and a good shot. Now if we could make him 6’3″….

#88 Ryan Savage**: The 5’11,” 180-pound Miami of Ohio freshman had a good drive train. Coming out of the USHL’s Fargo Force, Savage held onto the puck well and skated up ice with a purpose.

#89 Pavel Gogolev**: Another free agent invite, the 6,’ 168-pound Peterborough Petes forward was fast and displayed a skill set fitting someone who posted 30 goals and 47 points in 60 OHL games played during his draft year, but his slight frame and ability to get bumped around are concerns.

#90 Joe Veleno: I don’t know whether Joe Veleno will end up as a top-six forward or a bottom-six forward, but I am fairly certain that Veleno will play in the NHL, and it’s rare to say that about a player on the first look. Veleno is a complete player who skates superbly, passes and makes good plays, shoots well and has two-way abilities. He’s in superb shape for an 18-year-old, looking like he’s already grown into a man’s body, and at 6’1″ and 191 pounds of left-shooting center, he’s a refreshing burst of skill amongst a prospect corps that’s overloaded with grinding forwards (see: why the Wings didn’t qualify Zach Nastasiuk).

Defensemen:

#21 Dennis Cholowski: Dennis is ready to turn pro for sure. Whether he’s ready to join the Red Wings, I’m not certain, but the late-blooming Cholowski has grown into his 6’1,” 195-pound frame, and his passing, playmaking, puck-lugging and head-manning abilities are excellent. His shot is good and he’s worked on his lateral and backwards skating so that he can gap up on opponents much better these days. He sees the ice like a top-pair defender, but he needs to get bumped around by bigger, stronger and older players before he makes the jump to the NHL.

#53 Kasper Kotkansalo: I’m still trying to figure out whether Kotkansalo is the next Kyle Quincey or something more. After a solid freshman season at Boston University, the 6’2,” 196-pound defender displayed a little more skating ability on his first day of his second summer development camp. Kasper isn’t going to wow you with puck-lugging perfection, but he’s steady and has a physical bite.

#62 Trevor Hamilton*: The 23-year-old Grand Rapids Griffins or Toledo Walleye-bound defenseman looks to have some Robbie Russo (the good) in him as a 6,” 198-pound right-shooting defender who can skate the puck up ice. The Grosse Pointe Farms native is likely destined for Dan Watson’s Walleye, where he’ll get a crash course in pro hockey after 2 years spent at Penn State. His dad is going to be coaching the USHL’s Muskegon Lumberjacks this year.

#74 Cole Fraser: I struggle with my assessment of Fraser because the incredibly physical 6’2,” 191-pound Peterborough Petes defenseman tends to show flashes of high-end skill…and he tends to show just enough flashes of high-end skill that you forget that he’s a meat-and-potatoes, crash-and-smash defenseman at heart.

#86 Alfons Malmstrom: Alfons looks ready for the SHL after a couple of up-and-down campaigns for Orebro and HV71 in the Swedish J20 league. At 6’2″ and 190 pounds, he’s a steady, stocky dude with a slightly bent nose and a physical bent.

#94 Alec Regula: I’m a day into watching Chet Regula’s son try to carve out a place for himself along the Red Wings’ jutting jaw of a blueline, and the dentist’s son, who chose to play for on Evan Bouchard’s flank with the London Knights instead of accepting a scholarship to Michigan, looked very mobile, sharp in terms of his passing and vision and very, very lanky at 6’4″ and only 203 pounds on a frame that could hold 220.

#95 Seth Barton: The Red Wings’ other 3rd-round pick on defense was harder to pin down. The 6’3,” 174-pound right-shooter coming out of the BCHL to play for UMass-Lowell displayed good skating skills, but I he didn’t really stand out from the pack.

Goalies:

#31 Jesper Eliasson: One of two Swedish goaltenders picked by the Wings last weekend, Eliasson is 6’3″ and 209 pounds, and he’s going to head from Troja-Ljungby to the Vaxjo Lakers’ J20 team. He’s big, assertive yet spare in the net. He looked solid but unspectacular out there.

#38 Joren van Pottelberghe: Going into his final year as an unsigned Wings prospect, JvP holds more on his shoulders than his nameplate. The 6’2″ goaltender has split the netminding duties with Gilles Senn in HC Davos of the Swiss league, and JvP continues to leave a Jonas Hiller-style Swiss butterfly behind him, but there are still some bad habits in terms of his hands resting on his hips or over-reliance on an almost spread-eagle stance that need to be purged from his goaltending.

#60 Kaden Fulcher: If it were up to me, Kaden wouldn’t turn pro with the Griffins or Walleye this upcoming season, but it’s not up to me. The free agent signing and 6’3,” 182-pound Hamilton Bulldogs goaltender won the OHL title and was named the Memorial Cup’s best goalie because his technique is absolutely impeccable–good and bad. Fulcher was able to handle all of Filip Zadina’s dekes and dangles as he pulled double duty for Teams Lindsay and Howe, he’s got a great glove hand, strong blocker, he stickhandles well, his stance and positioning are good and his toes are speedy, but there are the occasional holes up high.

* = Grand Rapids Griffins signing, ** = free agent invite.

Team Howe:

Forwards:

#11 Filip Zadina: I wasn’t openly drooling over Zadina’s play, but he impressed me significantly on his first day, using a borrowed stick, borrowed Bauer gloves and a Bauer helmet (probably Dylan Larkin’s on both counts) and a borrowed CCM stick. The 6,’ 196-pound likely graduate of the Halifax Mooseheads is an impeccable, elegant shooter whose snap, slap, wrist, forehand and backhand shots are all lethal, and he possesses a Hossa-wide skating stride to back up his dekes, dangles and dazzling offense. He looks grown into his body at 18, and it is not outlandish to suggest that he will battle for a spot on the Red Wings’ roster this fall.

#17 Ryan O’Reilly: Boy, he’s a pickle to figure out. The 6’2,” 201-pound right-shooting forward who played for the USHL’s Madison Capitols and will head to the University of Denver is a lot like Jack Adams–his goal-scoring skills are impeccable, and he is a superb “transporter,” but that’s about all I saw from him.

#27 Michael Rasmussen: NHL-ready, plain and simple. The 6’6,” 221-pound graduate of the WHL’s Tri-City Americans, the team he captained to an excellent playoff run, looks poised to join the Red Wings’ forward corps on the wing, perhaps in a supporting role to start, but the businesslike, fast-speaking Rasmussen possesses the skating ability, strength and all-round puck skills to soon find his way into the Wings’ top six. He enjoys going to the net and staying there, his surgically-repaired wrist is at 100% and he’s simply a man in a man’s body.

#37 Mattias Elfstrom: I really struggle with Elfstrom because there’s so much that should be there. At 6’3″ and 200 pounds, he’s got an adult body and he’s got professional skating skills, but he only posted 9 points in 49 games played with Allsvenskan team Vasterviks IK this past season, and he’s going into his final year of eligibility as a Wings prospect needing to step things up in terms of production significantly to make all that hockey sense count.

#46 Lane Zablocki: If Zablocki were not among the litany of checking forwards in the pipeline, I’d be more excited about him. Traded during his WHL season, Zablocki is steady at 6′ and 190 pounds, he’s fast and he is quite physical for his now-average size. He’s got a lot of jam and grit to his game, but can he separate himself from the pack?

#48 Givani Smith: Givani is ready to turn pro. At 6’2″ and 206 stocky pounds, Smith looks like he took his late-season trade to Kitchener and used it as a springboard to professional-level maturity and professional-level skill development. Smith is likely a third or fourth-line forward, but he’s fast, heavy, hard and has above-average skills for a grinder. If he starts in Toledo, it won’t be a setback.

#67 Brady Gilmour: I love watching Gilmour skate and I admire his hard work and determination. I’m not so thrilled with the fact that he’s 5’10” and 170 pounds, and spent this past season on the Saginaw Spirit’s IR somewhat regularly. He’s got a ton of chutzpah, but the Wings’ lineup is pretty stacked in terms of plucky grinding forwards already in the system.

#75 Sebastian Vidmar**: Jack Adams’ teammate at Union College, the 6’3,” 189-pound native of Malmo posted 30 points in 36 senior year games for the Union Dutchmen, and he’s now looking for a spot to land. He might be a Walleye recruit if he impresses over the duration of development camp.

#76 Chase Pearson: I keep on hearing great things about the University of Maine’s co-captain, and I see that he had a strong junior year, posting 27 points in 37 games (despite battling some injuries), and I get excited about the 62,” 200-pound center and son of NHL grinder Scott Pearson. Then I watched him today, and he was all over the place. There were moments when Pearson looked large and in charge as he chugged up the ice, times when his passing was as superb as his assist level and times that his shot was elite, and there were times that he faded into the pack. Going into his senior year, he’s got to find consistent form.

#81 Trevor Yates*: Graduating from Cornell University to join either the Grand Rapids Griffins or Toledo Walleye, the 6’2,” 203-pound center displayed solid form and good skating skills, but that was about all I saw on my first viewing.

#85 Luke Morgan**: A free agent invite, the 5’11,” 190-pound Morgan was a speed merchant out there. The Brighton, MI native who transferred from Lake State to U of M looked like he skipped a year of eligibility to transfer, which he did.

#92 Maxim Golod**: Russian name, Ontario birth certificate, 5’10,” 160 pounds of Erie Otters forward, posted a point-every-other-game in his draft year. I liked his hands and playmaking ability but I didn’t see much else.

Defensemen:

#50 Reilly Webb: I’m pretty sure that the Saginaw Spirit defenseman only took part in the afternoon sessions. Webb is a spare and steady 6’3″ and 201 pounds–his 4 points in 66 games reflect his production level–but Webb is safe and steady in the best senses of the term, and for a player of his size and bulk, he gets around the ice well.

#54 Gustav Lindstrom: Gustav had a very up-and-down day probably skating on the ice for the first time since March. He signed with the SHL’s Frolunda Indians after a great campaign for Almtuna, and the 6’2,” 187-pound right-shooter is an excellent skater and puck-transporter who passes well, sees the ice quite well and has a deceptively hard shot. He had some bumpy moments and still got bumped around fairly easily, and while I believe that he’s eventually going to be an NHL player, he’s got to work on his core strength.

#63 Jared McIsaac: Boy, what a puzzle. Filip Zadina’s teammate, and a second-round pick that was supposed to go in the first round, the 6’1,” 193-pound defenseman is most certainly a big lug for his size, but there are times that he vacillates from “safe and simple” to high-IQ and then he’s back to “meat and potatoes” again. McIsaac has more talent than the first day’s showing indicated, but I would also argue that he looks like a mid-pairing, stay-at-home defender, someone who would accentuate a puck-lugger like Lindstrom.

#73 Marcus Crawford*: Another Griffins-or-Walleye-bound player, the 5’11,” 190-pound Saginaw Spirit defenseman posted 53 points in 68 OHL games last year, but he’s another small right-shooting defender, and the Wings seem to have a bunch of those in the prospect pipeline.

#79 Malte Setkov: So frustrating! Setkov is 6’6″ (at least) and listed at a lanky 192 pounds, and watching the lithe defenseman skate up the ice with authority as he lugs the puck with him, you think that he might be a real keeper…and then somebody bumps him off the puck with the greatest of ease. Setkov had a good year from a long-range standpoint in that he played in the World Junior Championship for Denmark and earned a 2-year extension from the Malmo Redhawks, but he also posted all of 2 assists in 26 games for the J20 team, and he did little to nothing after the WJC. There’s potential there, lots of potential, but what else?

#87 Patrick Holway: Going into his senior season at the University of Maine, the 6’4,” 204-pound defenseman looks to have grown from boy to man over the course of the past season. His lanky arms and legs are no longer askew as he skates up and down the ice, he looks much stronger on his skates, and his 19 points in 33 games for a strong Maine team suggest that there is some playmaking skill there.

Goalies:

#34 Patrik Rybar: The 24-year-old free agent signee is headed to either Grand Rapids or Toledo, and I didn’t get to see much of him other than a pre-morning-skate’s worth of goalie-specific skating drills. At 24 and having posted a stellar 1.73 goals-against average and .931 save percentage with HC Hradec Kralove (a.k.a. HC Mountfield), the Slovak is an intriguing prospect…But I need to see him work against skating forwards.

#68 Victor Brattstrom: The Red Wings drafted the 21-year-old Timra J20 team goaltender because he’s…Well, he’s 6’5,” 198 pounds, and he reminds me of Jonas Gustavsson, except that he’s more in control of his limbs. There are upsides and downsides to being a gigantic puck-blocking machine, however, and when he got out of his stance, there were some holes.

#80 Keith Petruzzelli: Keith had an up-and-down freshman season with the Quinnipiac Bobcats, essentially splitting the net with Andrew Shortridge, and Petruzzelli’s stats weren’t the better ones. At 6’6″ and 185 pounds, coming off a tremendous year with the Muskegon Lumberjacks, his inability to start regularly until late in the season belied his overall talent level, because he’s really elite in terms of his fundamentals…But on Tuesday morning, he looked a little sore, and skated off after the goalie-specific skill drills to not be seen again.

I hope this entry’s been a solid-enough first day’s worth of stuff. Please let me know if you want me to reprise last year’s drill-explained-in-detail stuff–tonight, to be quite blunt, I had to take the mom out grocery shopping after 8 hours either at the rink or in transit to and from the rink, and not having that extra hour or two to write at the hotel means that I’m struggling to juggle household responsibilities, covering what other people have to say about this camp, covering what I have to say about the camp, the lead-up to free agency (which I’ve never had to worry about before–this summer development camp is hella early) and trying to get some sleep (tonight will not be good in that department).

I’m doing the best I can, but if you have any words of encouragement or constructive criticism as to how I can get better, please let me know via Twitter, email, Facebook, the comments section, etc. I will try my best to get this entry out earlier tomorrow.