The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan filed a notebook article from the final day of the Red Wings’ 2023 Summer Development Camp, and he noted that the Wings’ participants don’t necessarily believe that there are no jobs on the line in July:
[Red Wings director of player development Dan] Cleary feels this camp is an excellent opportunity for players to have fun and learn, while not being evaluated on what they do on the ice. But, the competitiveness of the young players often comes through.
“We say it (no evaluation being done) but I feel like they don’t believe us,” Cleary said. “But, it’s more educational. Come in and have fun and get to meet, hopefully, your future teammates, which certainly a lot of them will be. We flood them with information, it’s almost an overload, and we just try to circle back with them with nutrition and sleep (habits) and a bunch of different talks.”
Testing is done on every player, in terms of skating and weight training, and players are given recommendations for the summer. But whether on the ice or off, players will compete.
“But try to tell Lambo (Lombardi) ‘if you don’t score a goal, it’s OK’,” Cleary said. “Some of these kids, they’re just wired differently. Marco (Kasper) was so mad he lost, but he’s a competitive kid, and you want competitive kids, even if it’s 3-on-3.”
