The Hockey News’s Sam Stockton offers up a very superb set of observations regarding the Red Wings‘ 2023 Summer Development Camp this evening:
There were two Red Wings present at development camp with a legitimate shot to start the 2023-24 season at the NHL level: Marco Kasper and Carter Mazur.
Kasper, Detroit’s first round selection in 2022, is coming off a nasty injury at the tail end of last season, and while there were hints of rust during his week of camp, he was still able to turn heads with his skating.
In particular during the 3-on-3 tournament, Kasper was a monster on zone entries. He could wind up into his own end, traverse the neutral zone, and get the puck safely into the offensive third of the ice with ease. He scored off one such play.
Kasper also flashed the kind of forechecking pressure that helped make him such an effective player back in Sweden. Kasper’s puck protection put him at another level from many of his prospect peers. The 19-year-old Austrian looked at ease with a defender draped across his back, whether in drills early in the week or the 3-on-3 games at its conclusion. That will be an invaluable tool for Kasper when he does get to the NHL.
Still, Steve Yzerman emphasized that for Kasper (or for Simon Edvinsson, who did not skate at development camp) the Wings will default to starting the player in Grand Rapids but remain open to the possibility that they will play well enough to bypass that step. Especially considering Kasper’s injury, I would be surprised if he makes the Detroit roster out of training camp, but he will almost certainly play himself into a steady diet of NHL minutes by season’s end.
Continued (at length!)
