The Malik Report

The Red Wings' summer development campers got back to the business of doing team drills and beginning to work on Red Wings' systems play during the third day of the development camp, and they engaged in some incredibly unconventional but effective skating drills as well. Team Howe and Team Lindsay are spending this afternoon watching the Thunderbirds loop, spin and soar through the air, but the players were doing some looping, spinning and soaring of their own during Jiri Fischer's skill drills today, which was right on the line between stunningly beautiful to watch and smirk-inducing, depending on the player.

Here are the teams that participated in today's activities...

Team Howe:

Forwards:

Tyler Bertuzzi 59, LW

Andreas Athanasiou 72, C

Anthony Mantha 39, RW

Zach Nastasiuk 62, C

Dominic Turgeon 78, C

Hampus Melen 83, C

Alex Kile 44*, LW

Julius Vahtalo 67, C

Bryce Gervais 49*, RW

Evan Polei 82*, LW/C

Connor McGlynn 80*, C

Anthony Greco 37*, RW



Michael Babccock 81, LW*

Sheldon Dries 76*, C

Defensemen:

James De Haas 75, D

Vili Saarijarvi 71, D

Marc McNulty 74, D

Won-Jun Kim 51*, D

Nicholas Azar 87*, D

Kevin Lough 94*, D

Kevin Lidstrom 64*, D

Goaltenders:

Chase Perry 50, G

Tomas Kral 68*, G

*Indicates try-out

Team Lindsay

Forwards:

Axel Holmstrom 96, C

Dylan Larkin 25, C

Evgeny Svechnikov 22, LW

Tyson Spink 73*, LW

Alex Globke 45*, C

Jerome Verrier 70*, RW

Mike McKee 58, LW

Christoffer Ehn 92, C

Nick Betz 54*, RW

Chase Pearson 17, C

Jin Hui Ahn 84*, RW

Adam Marsh 63, LW

Adam Lidstrom 85*, LW

Defensemen:

Travis Walsh 89*, D

Joe Hicketts 53, D

David Nemecek 46*, D

Patrick Holway 79, D

Grant Gabriele 86*, D

Jalen Chatfield 97*, D

Jarrett Meyer 95*, D

Goaltenders:

Jake Paterson 36, G

Joren Van Pottelberghe 31, G

Adam Lidstrom didn't skate today due to an undisclosed injury, but Mitchell Callahan was out just before the second set of skill drills helping the goaltenders with their drills.

Again, because the practices are overlapping, I didn't get to see everything that Team Howe and Team Lindsay engaged in, but I watched a good enough chunk of the team and skill drills to give you a solid recap thereof.

As per usual, the goaltenders--in this case Joren Van Pottelberghe and Jake Paterson--began the day working with Jim Bedard and Jeff Salajko, first warming up their legs and groins by stopping toe-directed shots along the half boards, initially without a goal stick and then with their goal stick; Van Pottelberghe was reminded to keep his shoulders upright, and Salajko made a wise point in telling JVP that he tends to lean his glove and blocker on his goal pads when they should be upright and facing the shooter.

The second goalie drill involved what's called a "VH" push off the goalpost, in which the goaltender's pad closest to the post is vertical and the "leading" pad is horizontal, involving no stick for either goalie;

The third drill involved squaring up to the goalpost on one side of the net, skating out to stop a shot taken from the opposite side of the "horseshoe" D that is the NHL goal crease, sliding back to square up to the other goalpost (ex. first squaring up to the glove side goalpost, facing out toward said side, and then skating toward the blocker side to stop a shot at the top of the crease, skating back to the blocker side goalpost, facing toward the blocker side, and then skating up to stop a glove side shot);

The fourth drill involved kicking rebounds of a side-boards shot, out to the corners and then squaring up to the opposite post, center crease, and stopping another shot at the one of the tops of the "D," opposite from the initial rebound-kicking shot;

And those second shots kept moving closer and closer to the net, from the tops of the faceoff circles to the faceoff dots, and then the bottoms of the faceoff circles, and then only 5 feet from the tops of the horseshoe.

Later in the morning, at David's RInk, Mitchell Callahan helped Salajko and Bedard work with Chase Perry and Tomas Kral as they worked their way through mostly the same drills; there were also more focused on squaring up to the shooter than they were recovering from opposite-side-of-the-net or opposite-side-of-the-top-of-the-crease drills.

When the skaters from Team Lindsay took to the ice, they spent the vast majority of their time working on short passing and dump-and-retrieval drills.

First, with forwards clustered at the Northeast and Southeast bluelines, and defensemen at the opposite sides of center ice, forwards and defensemen would skate out from the repositories in a sort of "reverse breakout" in which the forward would pass back and forth with the defenseman as he would skate out to center and then back in toward his own line, the forward would peel off to get a pass from the defenseman on the other side of the ice and skate in on "his own" goalie, a new puck was passed to the first defender by a second forward, and that forward skate in as the first forward stood at the net...

Or as I explained it in my notes:

It's a reverse breakout and lateral pass to the “other team,” the other team forward gets a shot in, the rebound is passed back or a new puck is passed to the D< they round the cone as a 2nd forward comes in and shoots, and then the D shoots from that opposite-side-of-ice cone (i.e. SW starts circling Sw w/ lateral pass, then chugs up to NE cone).

3 passes between F1 and D1, then lateral pass to F2 (who was passing to D2), F2 skates in, F3 skates in as D1 skates around cone, takes point shot with F1 and F2 in front.

Timing, all about the timing of making a play come together.

Sound complicated? It was.

The second drill involved forwards and defensemen from the opposite sides of the blueline (ex. Northeast blueline for a forward and Southwest blueline for a defender) would skate in on the goalie opposite the forward repository on a 1-on-1, then both players would come to center ice, skate to the far blueline, and a second forward would come into the picture to facilitate a 2-on-1; the hard part of the drill involved the defenseman having to chase the first forward coming toward him, but this was also a sort of "square up" drill for the defensemen.

The remaining drills were iterations on a theme, and it was a Red Wings theme: retrieving turnovers and having defensemen pass pucks up the middle of the ice instead of the side boards, even if that means passing into your own slot when there are opposing team's forwards in your zone, because there are times when the slot is the only place that's free of opposing players.

Three coaches played "dummy" opposition forwards in that they were willing to turn over a "soft dump-in" deep, and a pair of defenders and three forwards would skate back, defensemen first, to steal the "soft dump." The forward nearest the dump-in was "cut off" by one of the three coaches, and as such, the pursuing defenseman had to pass the puck out to a forward in his own slot, and that forward would skate up with his compatriots in a 2-on-0 breakaway;

The defensemen were shadowed in different ways, so that they had to backhand the puck between their legs, flick a blind pass to the slot or could actually plain old turn and send it up the boards; the second and third coaches began to shadow the forwards to ensure that the drill wasn't a simple pass up the middle to an open man; eventually, as you'd hope, four defensemen were involved instead of two--with the second pair standing at the far blueline--and the small dump-in could reverse the puck so that the forwards involved in the break-out would now break IN from center ice.

Eventually, the nets were pushed in from the goal lines to the bluelines, and the players played a little 2-on-2 hockey with the side boards wide open and open to dump the puck off of to retain or sometimes re-set possession. This was a wide-angle version of the "street hockey" games that the players had taken part in on Days 1 and 2, and there was a surprising amount of physical contact for a drill in which so much "wide ice" was open. The players began to drive to the net and drive up the middle on their own, and especially when you're talking about Major Junior players who've been taught to play things safe and dump and not chase, you want to see players engage each other in some north-south hockey.

After a Zamboni resurfacing of the West Rink, the players separated into forwards and defensemen, with Team Howe and Team Lindsay blending into "big teams."

The defensemen headed to David's Rink to work on their skating with Jiri Fischer, and work on their skating, they did.

Fischer initially had his charges skating backward in serpentine fashion from one side of the ice to the other, making six to eight circuits of lateral passes through lanes before pushing back for short periods of time;

His second drill involved the defensemen placing their sticks out in front of their bodies--front in this case is "north"--perpendicular to their direction of backwards skating to separate the direction of the torso from the direction of the legs, and this was particularly tricky, but every defenseman aced it;

Fischer's third drill involved a "stop-and-jump" going backwards to the left and then to the right, in which the defensemen had to essentially "take a knee" to twist, turn and propel themselves backwards. Fischer made sure to emphasize that he wanted the players to jump as far as they could onto that knee, and the Z-S-Z-S-Z-S sight of players skating backwards hopping was fascinating.

The defensemen were pivoting on their "forward" foot and jumping onto their back foot, going all the way back from goal line to goal line.

The backwards motion continued as Fischer had his defensemen skate backward in "C cuts" in which one shimmies their rear end and makes a "C" shape with their leg and skate to skate backwards without facing backwards, there were three chugs and c cut, c cut, c cut, c cut, first straight-legged, then involving crossovers.

Meanwhile, on the West Rin, the players were engaged in a set of "circuit drills" in which five teams of four forwards would either battle one of the four goalies or take one-timers.

The first "circuit" involved Todd Nelson feeding the players one-timer passes to be one-timed into an open, empty net placed along the half boards;

At the south end, where I first watched Joren Van Potterberghe man the net, there were coach's gloves placed 10 feet inside the faceoff circles parallel to the hash marks, and forwards were making 2 lateral passes to each other, and on the third pass, the forward who was taking part in the shooting drill would shoot, attempting to beat the goalie going side-to-side-to-side;

At the north end, where I first witnessed Jake Paterson man the net, Tom Watson had the forwards involved making an L-shaped turn where they would skate in hard from the half boards, stop, receive a pass and skate in on the net quite hard, first on the blocker and then on the glove side of the goaltender;

On the east side of the rink, Tomas Kral was stopping backhand and then one-timed shots from inside and outside of cones placed about 15 feet apart at the bottom of the large center-ice faceoff circle;

And on the west side of the rink, Chase Perry was stopping players who had a puck flipped into their hands and then dropped glove-to-stick to shoot at the outside of one cone, skate laterally to the other side-of-the-circle cone, and shoot a regular pass instead of a glove-to-stick one.

Halfway through the session, the defensemen moved to the West Rink and worked on goalie-specific drills under Todd Nelson's guidance...

While the forwards all trudged over to David's Rink to work with Jiri Fischer.

The forwards were asked to skate around these big blocks of foam--about ten feet long, two feet wide and two feet high--and to do so in a seprentine fashion, "taking a knee" as they accelerated out of the "S," with the forwards going...forward.

Fischer asked the forwards to "hold the edge and accelerate out" as they made S-turns around the blocks of foam...

And then things got crazy when Fischer placed four goals parallel to each other, with ten-foot gaps between them. He laid the foam blocks on TOP of the goals, and had the players skate UNDER them in a serpentine fashion, ducking to avoid hitting their heads (or the nets). Even Dylan Larkin wiped out at one point during the drill, but after everything wrapped up, Fischer gave a long speech...

And he stated that part of learning how to skate better involves limiting turnovers, because the vast majority of change-of-possession goals are scored within 5 seconds of a turnover. As such, his rationale was that the faster a player can skate in the offensive zone, the greater chances they have to generate turnovers against their opponents, and the greater your chances of scoring are.

Team Lindsay then headed to the lockers, and Team Howe worked on the aforementioned team drills with coaches Nelson, Derek Lalonde, Watson, Ben Simon and someone I could not recognize who was wearing a pair of black gloves with gold trim.

In terms of player assesments, keeping in mind that this is July, that it's a skill development camp, and that I've seen some of these players only four times:

Team Howe:

Forwards:

Tyler Bertuzzi 59, LW: Bertuzzi's development as a player and Bertuzzi's development as a person go hand-in-hand. The smiling, goofy kid who at first didn't know which drills to take seriously has grown into a smiling, goofy young man who is teaching other players when to take things seriously and when to remember that the players trying to turn heads at a pro development camp are also playing a game, for fun. Bertuzzi's become a real leader while displaying no less ability as a possible 2nd line winger whose upright skating style allows him to see checks before they're coming and bump and grind his opponents instead, agitate, make plays and score goals at very high rates of speed, but today, Bertuzzi shone because he was enjoying himself.

Andreas Athanasiou 72, C: Athanasiou's also here to lead, and as I said yesterday, he's not taking part in the on-ice activities, but he is most certainly soaking up all he can from the off-ice parts.



Anthony Mantha 39, RW: Mantha appeared to be buoyed by Bertuzzi's mood, and it's a rare thing to see Anthony Mantha smiling, but smile he did today. When he is "on," he is an elite scoring winger whose ability to shelf pucks or score from a dangerous one-timer is immense; when he's cruising or gliding, he's just not the same, and the truth is that the difference between a Franzen-like loafer and a #1 scoring winger is going to be found between his ears. He's got to apply himself at 100% of his abilities every shift, and he has yet to get there, though he's clearly trying.

Zach Nastasiuk 62, C: Nastasiuk doesn't have to try very hard to try his best, because every shift he has is his best. Nastasiuk continues to look like someone who is far overripe for the pro game, a consummate checker and hard-working third-line center who wants to lead by example and lead by words as well. There's polish and poise beyond his years here, and according to Nastasiuk, having a dad who was a professional athlete built that foundation for him.

Dominic Turgeon 78, C: I'm guessing Turgeon would say something similar as the son of a highly-skilled offensive machine, and in that sense, it's very intriguing to watch Dominic try to establish himself as an offensive presence. I'm not sure whether he's squeezing blood from a stone of a third-line forward with a little less bulldog physicality than Nastasiuk, Dominic is attempting to show the Red Wings and ultimately show the Portland Winterhawks that he can do more than check. During the development camp, he's been dynamic, smart and dad-like patient; whether he can continue on that path during the prospect tournament will tell the tale.

Hampus Melen 83, C: Still hard to figure out. Melen is a very good skater with 6'3" size, but Melen is someone whose previous season with Karlskrona was his first healthy season in three years. Is he a Christoffer Ehn-style playmaker with speed or is he just another Swedish prospect with flashes of tantalizing skill but no toolbox? It's hard to say.

Alex Kile 44*, LW: Kile looked steadier today, and the 6,' 190-pound University of Michigan forward has begun to find at least some sort of stride at camp.

Julius Vahtalo 67, C: Vahtalo either plays big or plays small depending on the shift, and that's a little puzzling to watch when you're watching a 6'4" center with a massive wingspan chug up and down the middle of the ice making smart plays. I still think that the most important thing for Vahtalo is to get some more pro experience so that he can figure out what the hell he's becoming, never mind the Wings.

Bryce Gervais 49*, RW: 5'10" and 179 pounds, Gervais has, like so many try-outs, not stood out but not stood out for any reasons that are negative.

Evan Polei 82*, LW/C: The massive Calgary Hitmen winger with skating speed belying his 6'1," 219-pound frame continues to look impressively defensively responsible and just solid as a big, meaty winger who can mop up after the smaller guys and probably knock them into next week. He's likely to return for the prospect tournament to show the Wings what he can do.

Connor McGlynn 80*, C: Getting better all the time, the equally big 6'2," 210-pound Kingston Frontenacs center is speedy and is starting to score some head-turning goals here and there.

Anthony Greco 37*, RW: Greco seems to be like a poor man's Nastasiuk in that he's 5'10" and 171 pounds, but man, he loves to grind and he works his tail off. He's the perfect example of an NCAA player who I wish could be allowed to play at the prospect tournament, because he's got "speedy checker" written all over him, and "speedy checker with pro potential" at that, but he won't be back until next Summer.

Michael Babccock 81, LW*: If he can conquer his size he can conquer anything, and he reminds me of a non-scoring Pat Verbeek. He's a ball of energy, a ball of acerbic grit and a ball of excellent teammate who is willing to literally go through the wall for his teammates.

Sheldon Dries 76*, C: Still not sticking out but is among the try-outs who have acquitted themselves well.

Defensemen:

James De Haas 75, D: De Haas had a fantastic scrimmage performance but was a little more subdued today. The 6'4," 210-pound defenseman continues to make excellent plays at a high rate of speed and is most visible as a puck-lugger as opposed to a passer, and his vision and passing are pretty darn solid as well. I haven't seen much of a shot from the maneuverable defenseman, but he's going to have to find it and find it fast to continue his development.

Vili Saarijarvi 71, D: He's just ahead of the play, and that is the beautiful thing about watching Saarijarvi. There were times that he got manhandled a bit today, and at 5'10" and 170-something, you expect that he's not exactly going to be NHL-ready despite having signed an entry-level deal all of a week after he was drafted. He's got great wheels, he was excellent during the skating drills and his pass and shot are superb, he's got a solid poke-check and he knows how to head off big hits most of the time. He needs to go to the OHL and to become a dominant defenseman there.

Marc McNulty 74, D: I'm glad to have heard today that McNulty remains an "informal" prospect who can go back to Kamloops of the WHL, because the speed with which the 6'6," 210-pound defenseman skates and the abilities he has in terms of puckhandling and passing are tantalizing as all heck get out, but he's still catching up to his body, and that's why the Wings didn't sign him. Sometimes players take more time to mature than their eligiblity allows, and hopefully he'll have a great year in the WHL and earn a contract, because he's a good egg and a hard worker.

Won-Jun Kim 51*, D: Kim continues to earn an A+ for effort and an A+ for surprisingly being able to keep up at a level that allows him to blend in seamlessly with the rest of the tryouts. He really could come back for the prospect tournament if other commitments didn't weigh him down.

Nicholas Azar 87*, D: He is, again, a sort of Kevin Lough except for his free agent status. At 6'3" and 201 pounds, Azar moves well for a big man and displays flashes of skill in his passing, shooting and pace of play, but he's just coming out of Major Midget, and there is a long way for him to go to get himself together. That's why he's going to Harvard.

Kevin Lough 94*, D: Still holding his own at 5'11" and 194 pounds, he's speedy as you'd expect for his size but he hasn't stood out.

Kevin Lidstrom 64*, D: Kevin remains a bit of a conundrum as his dad-like fluidity in terms of making the game look simple and skating downright elegantly, if a little less nimbly than dad, but there is a blandness to his stay-at-home style that makes me wonder how high his pro ceiling really is. Is there more than a Division I defenseman here? Is he as offensively gifted as he looks during a summer skill development camp, or is he kind of getting lost on the big ice when maybe he should be in the ECHL if he's looking to advance his pro game? I'm not sure.

Goaltenders:

Chase Perry 50, G: Perry is still having problems in terms of his high glove and wide blocker, he's still getting beat five-hole or along the ice on the goalposts, and he still looks like a gigantic, spidery goalie that's all arms and legs, but he's also been very evidently learning and very evidently improving as he's exposed to elite-level goal coaching and is being thrown to the wolves in terms of his facing professional level shots and pace of play. There are many holes in his game but there's a web of potential that needs to be filled in with experience.

Tomas Kral 68*, G: I don't know if it's stereotypical to suggest that small goalies generally have good attitudes, but Tomas was blunt and honest when he said he has to improve everything to continue developing, understanding too well that being 5'10" and 178 pounds limits his ability to stand in the net and let the puck come to him. He has begun to come out of his crease a little more and he has begun to stay upright more regularly in his goal crease, and as a try-out with a lot to work on, it's good to see him at work.

*Indicates try-out

Team Lindsay

Forwards:

Axel Holmstrom 96, C: Like De Haas, Axel had a bit of a down/quiet day, but he looked no less like a "power center" or at least a "power checker" who will plow up and down the middle of the ice, using that incredibly deceptive speed and those chop-chop-choppy but smart strides to generate offensive chances. He can score goals, he can pass the puck well, he can hit and takes checks well and he's just steady in his effort and execution. Even a bad day is a strong day for Axel.

Dylan Larkin 25, C: Larkin also had a bit of a down/quiet day, but he was ripping one-timers into the back of the net, seamlessly completing the skating drills with a little panache as he ducked under the foam blocks, he just went about the business of executing and he did so at an elite pace and with elite skill. Things don't look hard for Dylan Larkin because most things aren't hard for Dylan Larkin. There was a wee bit of lingering frustration from yesterday's rough scrimmage go, but it passed and he got to work.

Evgeny Svechnikov 22, LW: There are still times that Svechnikov can literally trip over himself, but again, you see his goal-scoring and scoring-chance-creating abilities appear all at once and you go, "OH, THAT's why he was a 1st-round pick." He's not a magic man yet, but he's certainly vampiric in his ability to poof! and appear out of nowhere to make a massive impact on the game.

Tyson Spink 73*, LW: Spink is still 5'10" and Spink is still figuring things out, but among the try-outs, he's starting to be someone who people are taking a look at and noticing for the right reasons, for his work ethic, for his natural ability to skate strongly and his deft touch with the puck. Again, somebody who would benefit from going to the prospect tournament if his NCAA commitments didn't get in the way.

Alex Globke 45*, C: Globke had some trouble with the skating drills from time to time but was otherwise his steady self, looking like somebody who bears watching over the long haul as a 6'3," 205-pound soon-to-be-senior at Lake State who should put up the kind of point-per-game numbers he did two years ago.

Jerome Verrier 70*, RW: Verrier scores goals. Verrier agitates. Verrier doesn't do much else, and that's why he hasn't earned a pro contract yet. I love watching him at work and I really believe that he's someone who the ECHL would greatly benefit, but the QMJHL grad has two great gifts and exactly two great gifts. He skates pretty well, he can make plays decently, but he's a sniper, and snipers have to be a little more consistent than he is.

Mike McKee 58, LW: Rebounded after a very, very mediocre scrimmage to look comfortable as can be in the skating drills and continued to look like more than the sum of his 6'5," 250-pound parts when taking part in skill development and team drills. He's got to find a way to translate that into getting off Andy Murray's fourth line at WMU and beginning to blossom as a checking forward with massive bite at the NCAA level.

Christoffer Ehn 92, C: Ehn's improved significantly over the course of the camp, or at least he's become much more visible for all the right reasons. Despite being skinny as a rail, Ehn's got near-Larkin speed and he makes good plays at that incredibly high rate of speed. He's not a goal-scorer in any North American shape, but you can see why he earned some ice time with the Frolunda Indians, and as I keep saying, he needs more pro experience to literally and figuratively fill out into a 2nd-line forward who can distribute the puck well.

Nick Betz 54*, RW: Betz had a good day. The 6'4," 220-pounder had some rough spells in the skating drills, but there were few who didn't, and as someone who's probably coming back in the fall, beginning to push his way into the upper levels of the prospects who are here on tryouts while looking a lot more coordinated than he did on Friday is going to benefit the Erie Otters forward going...let's say looking into the future.

Chase Pearson 17, C: Pearson and Adam Marsh broke their sticks firing hard one-timers fed to them by coach Nelson, and Pearson is still more of a winger than a center who looks to be most effective making plays in semi-stealth mode. I'm still having a hard time drawing a bead on the Maine-bound 6'2" center, I must admit.

Jin Hui Ahn 84*, RW: Ahn and Kim have both earned the A+'s for effort and fitting-in abilities, and Ahn's status as sometimes half-a-step slow didn't hurt him in the skating drills. He just kept along nicely.

Adam Marsh 63, LW: Kind of like Verrier, Marsh is a consummate goal-scorer who shoots, shoots and also shoots, which speaks to his favor and also speaks to a player who was drafted for his goal-scoring abilities but has to fill out his game and his skinny body. He's still 17 and growing so there is room for improvement that will probably be filled in.

Adam Lidstrom 85*, LW: Lidstrom didn't play today due to an undisclosed injury. It's too bad, because he's acquitted himself very well as a 19-year-old headed to NCAA hockey in a year or two.

Defensemen:

Travis Walsh 89*, D: I just haven't seen much of him, and I don't mean that in a bad way, but the MSU product and occasional Hicketts partner is just blending in.

Joe Hicketts 53, D: Hicketts got bumped around and Hicketts was both the poster boy for acing the skating drills and had some trouble with others. There's definitely a Rafalski-like quality in that Hicketts is at his best when he steers his opponents into his body, where he can kick pucks away or get some in-tight leverage upon whoever he's battling, but there are still times that he gets turned around. Always grinning, even without his front teeth, and always working his ass off, I'm assuming that Hicketts is going to conquer the deficiencies in his game, and again, I see much more potential in him as a secon-pair defenseman than I do the conventional take that he's a 3rd-pair guy who needs "sheltered minutes."

David Nemecek 46*, D: Nemecek has arrived, but I'm not sure what exactly has. Like Vahtalo, he's 6'4" and plays in the Finnish Liiga, and like the rest of the try-outs, he's blended in to the point that you don't really notice him. He's had some flashes of skill, but they've only been glimpses.

Patrick Holway 79, D: Holway has been getting steadier and steadier, and when you're an 18-year-old that's 6'5," steadiness and building upon a scrimmage's worth of offensive production with mobility and a surprising panache for passing and shooting and shutting down opponents is all to the good.

Grant Gabriele 86*, D: Gabriele was very quiet today, just going through the skill drills and grinding it out. This was perhaps the least impressive day for what I would describe as an impressive if incredibly wan (i.e. thin) defenseman headed to Western Michigan University.

Jalen Chatfield 97*, D: Chatfield was also very quiet today, and the Windsor Spitfires defenseman has to do more if he's going to impress come September.

Jarrett Meyer 95*, D: And Meyer didn't look TOO uncoordinated during the skating drills, which is remarkably impressive given that he's 6'8."

Goaltenders:

Jake Paterson 36, G: Jake continues to plain old need to get to the top of the paint to take care of his lack of margin for error due to being "only" 6'1," but he worked very hard today to focus on squaring up, to focus on tracking the puck and to focus on improving his skill set so that impeccably-seamless technique improves down the line. A hybrid netminder who isn't quite a butterfly and isn't quite an old-fashioned reflex stand-up, there are times that he reminds me of Chris Osgood in that there are more than a few instances in which he "battles" the puck out in unorthodox fashion, but he doesn't turn over his blocker like Ozzie did, which is a relief.

Joren Van Pottelberghe 31, G: Figuring it out, figuring it out. I was thrilled that Salajko spotted JVP's tendency to lean his glove and blocker on his goal pads instead of placing his glove facing out against the shooter and his blocker higher and more ready for shots against. He's really elegant to watch in the skill drills, but there are more and more instances where it's clear that he's adjusting to a faster pace and a narrower rink in North America, and he's let up some softies here and there as a result. He's still only 18 and still working on accentuating that Swiss Butterfly with better fundamentals, but he's working on it presently.

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