Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen posted an overnight column which discusses whether Red Wings prospect Carter Mazur may be able to make the Wings’ roster out of training camp:
Perhaps no one in the Red Wings organization is as fluent in Mazur’s charge to the top of the hockey world as Kris Draper. Detroit’s assistant GM and director of amateur scouting was Mazur’s youth hockey coach.
“Carter is an incredible kid,” Draper said. “The one thing I knew about Maze was that this kid was always low maintenance. It was just go out and play. You could see at 15, 16 years old he had a good feel for the game. He had the smarts, he had the competitiveness.
“He’s a wiry, strong player. You look at him and everyone says he’s gotta get stronger. But the thing you realize when he goes out and plays the game is No. 1, he has the puck. No. 2, he’s always hard to knock off the puck and that’s something that you don’t teach. It’s just something that’s there.
“He’s got that inner drive. He’s got that competitiveness. Carter was a kid that always wanted to get better. He was always asking the right questions. At practice time, a lot of the little things. The puck protection, the wall play. Understanding PK stick placement.”
Continued with comments from Patrick Kane, Dan Cleary and Shai Buium…
