The third day of Prospect Camp was fairly uneventful. After spending Friday watching Riopel, Stewart, and Bobrovsky, I spent today trying to watch Rawlings, Morrison, and Phillips. But those three worked mostly on wraparounds, which was too dull to watch.
At the other rink, Riopel, Stewart, and Bobrovsky had some difficulty getting a lot of action since the skaters were having difficulty following Coach Berube’s instructions. Needless to say, it wasn’t a very eventful day of practice. And yet I was still able to get some video of Stewart, Bobrovsky, Morrison, and Rawlings. Check them out at the BSH YouTube page.
The good news is that there were different players stepping up today, so today’s recap will be different than the previous days.
- Kevin Marshall (D, Adirondack) was back on the ice today after an unexplained absence yesterday. While he was less than impressive on Wednesday, he still has a great slap shot from the point. The problem is that he was invisible during the scrimmage. Overall, a rather disappointing Camp for Marshall so far.
- Nick Luukko (D, Gunnery Prep) took slap shots along with Marshall and Bourdon at the beginning of practice. Being flanked by those two is just unfair to Luukko as it makes him look… less than impressive.
- Gregor Hanson (W, Northern Michigan, tryout) showed off a decent wrist shot as he got a friendly ping off the crossbar during the umbrella shooting.
- Adam Morrison (G, Saskatoon) was mediocre at best again today. During practice, you got the feeling that he had no idea where the puck would go after hitting him. Not exactly comforting. By the time the scrimmage rolled around, he gave up an early weak goal to Testwuide. Later, he stopped Shane Harper (RW, Everett/Adirondack) alone in front after Pither had a terrible giveaway in the corner.
- Mike Testwuide (RW, Colorado College) beat Morrison with a backhander along the ice, and while Testwuide did a good job to get in scoring position, Morrison should have had it.
- Luke Pither (C, Barrie) tied the game up at 1 not long after, burying a rebound past Riopel. He still has the great passing skills as he made a between the legs pass to set up a great scoring chance in the slot. After firing a wrist shot off the post, Pither stole the puck from the defender and found the open man for a shot from the dots.
- Nicola Riopel (G, Adirondack/Moncton) rebounded after giving up that early equalizer with a solid performance. He stopped Kyle Mountain (C, New Hampshire, tryout) who was alone in front before making a few other nice stops. He needs to work on directing the rebounds into the corner some more, but he at least knows where they’re going, even if he doesn’t put them where he should.
- Zac Rinaldo (C, London/Barrie) had an eventful scrimmage. He took two penalties and got in a fight, largely because he’s so aggressive. He was laying huge hits all over the ice, getting in scrums, and just generally agitating. Personally, I think he’s a little reckless. While he definitely fits into the “Flyers mold”, he makes me uneasy.
- Andrew Rowe (LW, Michigan State) had another great game, showing both skill and toughness. He leveled fellow scrimmage-star Dowling early on, beat Rawlings on a breakaway to tie the game, then beat Rawlings again on a penalty shot but shot wide.
- Tye McGinn (LW, Gatineau) has been really quiet so far this Camp, but he had one good shift where he won a board battle and found the open man.
- There were three penalty shots in the game – two resulting from Rinaldo penalties – and none of them were converted. Harper missed high and wide; Rowe missed wide; and Holmstrom was stopped.
- Ben Holmstrom (C/RW, UMass/Adirondack) had a miserable day. First, he started to skate out of the defensive zone, then made a drop pass into traffic resulting in his team being stuck in their own end for the next 25 seconds and giving up scoring chances. Then he got leveled by Dowling. Lastly, he didn’t look too good grappling with Rinaldo.
- Justin Dowling (C, Swift Current, tryout) was the star of the scrimmage today, dancing around defenders, laying a huge open-ice hit on Holmstrom, then burying the game-winning goal from in front of the net after Erik Gustafsson (D, Northern Michigan/Adirondack) failed to clear.
- Brad Phillips (G, Notre Dame) had an alright game, making a few nice saves but giving up an unlucky goal: he got beat five-hole after a centering pass deflected off his defender’s leg.
- Chris Rawlings (G, Northeastern, tryout) was the second star of the game, making several key saves. He stopped Oliver Lauridsen (D, St. Cloud State) on a penalty shot before getting beat by Rowe – who went backhand, five-hole – on a breakaway. After that, he stopped two penalty shots (well, stopped one and saw the other go wide) from Rowe and Eric Wellwood.
- Everett Sheen (LW, Holy Cross, tryout) has been largely invisible this camp – throwing a few checks here and there – but he blocked a shot, chased it down to the other end and sealed the game with an empty net. Gustafsson didn’t even try to beat him to the puck, probably assuming the game was already over.
Even GM Paul Holmgren was in attendance:
He saw a few of his tryouts outperform his draft picks, which is one of those good and bad things. The Black Team improve to 2-1 on the week though:
