prospect camp day 3: quick notes

i woke up this morning at 9:08 and made it to the dome by 9:43... this all occurred partly because kent wanted to meet up, partly because i was excited to go, and partly because i drive fast. ;)

the sparsely attended morning power skating sessions were a yawn (last year they were done in the afternoon, so i'm pretty sure i just skipped 'em), but it was good to be there, nonetheless. it was much more entertaining after kent showed up, as the banter helped keep the attention off the fact that there was a lot of standing around being done on the ice....

noodles was out today, getting big ol' smiles and laughs out of leland irving at least, and we got our first look at the latest crop of draftees such as joni ortio (fast glove), tim erixon (nothing spesh, so far), and gaelen patterson (who ??!).

i kept a fairly keen eye on keith aulie and was altogether disappointed in his performance in the skating drills. he looked awfully average, slow and somehow clumsy with his enormous frame and massive head (i swear his helmet is bigger than everyone else's). he fared far better in the afternoon drills, so i'm still hopeful for his future development.....

i opted to not refer to my roster sheet during the afternoon session, and while i'd already pinpointed #56 (pelech), #60 (backlund), #61 (negrin), #54 (aulie), #51 (erixon), #74 (carpentier), #75 (armstrong) & each of the goalies (irving, keetley and ortio), i thought i'd allow the players to stand out on their own. the guy that kept impressing me was wearing #52, and i discovered later it was mitch wahl.... he has some good skating skills, decent positionning during drills, and has impressively soft hands....

other notes:

- ryan mcgill ran some drills with the defensemen, and i was impressed with his insistance that the boys get the drill RIGHT. at one point he made negrin re-start three or four times until it was clear what he (mcgill) wanted, and you could hear him repeating "go slower if you have to." bottom line: thusfar, i'm a fan.

- for some reason that is entirely unclear to me, john armstrong was singled out mid-way through the afternoon practice to do skating/puckhandling drills at centre ice on his own. he was getting feedback from some mystery coach who was sitting on the bench, but he set up a couple of pucks as pylons and was skating around them.... this went on for quite awhile. initially i thought he might still be injured, but the drills that the forwards were doing at the south end of the ice didn't seem overly physical... it's a bit of a headscratcher. maybe he was being punished for missing curfew or arriving late or something.

- backlund's hands are killer. from what i can see, his defensive game is still trouble.

- i still really like lance bouma. he's a DVDG in the making (and i still really like DVDG)...

that's about it for tonight. i'm skipping the a.m tomorrow but intend to head back down for 230. feel free to join me.