The Detroit Red Wings are holding their first development camp since the summer of 2019 starting tomorrow at Little Caesars Arena’s BELFOR Training Center. It appears that the camp is closed to the public as of this evening, but the Red Wings’ posted a press release stating that the team will be streaming events from said development camp.
The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan took note of Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman and director of amateur scouting Kris Draper’s comments regarding the camp, which takes place between Sunday, July 10 and Thursday, July 14:
“We really like it,” general manager Steve Yzerman said of the opportunity to hold a camp. “The European kids and U.S. college kids, that’s the only time we really have to spend with them throughout the year. The European kids go home and play in their leagues and the NCAA kids go to college and you’re limited to your access to them. Mostly it’s a great chance to spend four or five days with them and they get to know us and vice versa.”
The camp will be split into two teams, Team Howe and Team Lindsay, and will feature daily on-ice instruction and skill development from the organization’s player development staff.
Players will take part in NHL-level off-ice workouts and attend presentations designed to help players transition to professional hockey.
“We get four or five days to spend with them, get to know them and, more so for the younger kids that maybe haven’t been a college program or a European pro league, they get a chance to come in and get a chance to spend time with and work with our skating people, our skills people and our fitness people and really make sure they’re on a good program, if they’re not already, for the offseason. We talk about strengths and weaknesses and things we really want them to focus on, and kind of set them for the rest of the summer. We may not see some of them in Detroit until the following development camp.”
Continued; because the Red Wings’ European prospects play regular season hockey starting in September, and their NCAA-playing prospects attend college in the fall, the summer development camp is the only time that Detroit’s able to make in-person, in-house evaluations of said players.
The camp also serves as something of a selection process for free agent players who might take part in the fall prospect tournament, but the main point is to bring the prospects into Detroit’s facilities (which can be a recruiting tool in itself), and to build a profile of their on-ice and off-ice strengths and weaknesses.
From there, the Wings essentially give every prospect a “prescription” as to what they feel is most useful for the prospect to work on in terms of on-ice skills and off-ice development.
This is an educational camp as much as anything–the players will be given tips on nutrition, sleep, social media and how to work out safely and properly, so the Wings invest tens of thousands of dollars in every attendee, regardless of whether they’re the next Moritz Seider or the next great accountant. That’s what’s prospect development entails, and it’s good to know that the camp is back.
