Development Camp Reports

[smiggy77]

Absolutely loved this. thanks for this post!

[old-fart]

Apologies if I missed it, but has there been similar reviews for the camp invitees (non-drafted)?

Great work as always Caged.

[GranteedEV]

It's crazy for me to think that a guy I was comfortable as our #1C going into 2014-15 may be fighting tooth/nail to be our #3C in the 2016 Playoffs.

Bennett
Monahan
Jankowski
Backlund
Jooris
Arnold
Shore
Stajan
Granlund

Even moving four of them to the wings a la Colborne, thst depth looks as good as the 2012 Kings.

[Caged Great]

Originally Posted by old-fart

Apologies if I missed it, but has there been similar reviews for the camp invitees (non-drafted)?

Great work as always Caged.

No, mainly because almost all of them were invisible entirely in the camp and I don't like throwing mud at people who are trying their best to find a way to get to the next level.

Of the walk ons, only Baillie, Hawkins, and Pitt showed anything remarkable. Baillie and Hawkins were the two best walk on players that I have seen in the last 3 seasons including Jooris, who was pretty good in 2013. I could see Hawkins and Pitt being as sought after as Casey Bailey was last year (signed by T.O.)

Hawkins has a lot of offensive skill and I think he could be a top 6 forward in the NHL down the road. He only started playing hockey a few years ago and was dealing with being 5-11 and being 235 when he started. He is in the NCAA, so I don't know if the Flames will be able to snag him after this year, but he would be #1 on my list.

Baillie is a similarly talented player to Mangiapane with much the same profile and abilities. If Mangiapane wasn't on the board, I think we would have taken Baillie instead. He will be at Penticton so the Flames may sign him after that's done.

Pitt is a bigger guy who does't quite have as much raw skill as those other two guys but has good hands and knows how to protect the puck. Pitt reminded me a lot of Bailey last year. Morrison is friends with him as well as teammates last year and recommended he try out with Calgary because they will give you a shot. Always good to have good recruits.

Fram was a little better defensively than this time last year, but I don't know where he would play this season if they sign him. They might though because he isn't bad.

[old-fart]

Awesome, thanks. I've been on vacation for the past few weeks and missed the entire camp while, somewhat ironically I supposed, camping. I missed the draft too and I remember the wife reading my phone as we were driving saying "we drafted some guy named Hamilton, or maybe a trade?" and me almost driving into the ditch...

[DJones]

Originally Posted by handgroen

interesting to think how the 6th spot on the flames could (just my theory) dictate all the pairings.

if it's wotherspoon, then i'm okay with having wideman pair with him as the 5th defender, and then play lots of PP minutes. wideman's an experienced guy, offensive minded, right shot. to go with the rookie wotherspoon's left shot, simple d-minded game.

if it's morrison, then having him paired with russell on the bottom pairing makes perfect sense to me. morrison's an offensive minded right shooting rookie. russell is a defensively responsible experienced lefty.

if spoon makes it these are my pairings:

giordano - brodie
LH LH

Russel - Hamilton
LH RH

Wotherspoon - Wideman
LH RH

Engelland
RH

Good balance, spoon sees the least ice time as wideman plays PP minutes and Russel and Hamilton are your top PK pairing. Gio and brodie get a crack at going back to being the best pairing in hockey.


If morrison makes it these are my pairings.

Giordano - Hamilton
LH RH

Brodie - Wideman
LH RH

Russell - Morrison
LH RH

Engelland
RH

Lefty/righty on each pair. Hamilton gets to play top minutes with a great leader. wideman/brodie would be a damned good 2nd pairing and gives wideman an opportunity to put up points again this year. russell/morrison pairs the raw rookie with a good teacher, and russell will still get good minutes on the PK.

the only scenario i can't picture, is that the pairing of russell/wideman, which was so terrific for us down the stretch last season, stick together as the second pairing. with brodie gio and hamilton all being top flight talent i cannot picture any of them moving down to 3rd pairing minutes.

BTW i may have been thinking about this a little too much lately.

That almost makes me aroused haha

[Crumpy-Gunt]

Klimchuk - Bennett - Poirier.

3 players who I could see having a lot of chemistry. Klimchuk and Bennett already played on a line with Mcdavid at the u18s but Poirier fits in with their fast skilled gritty 2 way mentality as well as providing a good offensive threat.

I'd love to see those 3 as our line 1b in the future. To me klimchuk is hands down our most underrated prospect wit billy Arnold a close second.

Kilmmer will be a middle 6 nhl guy. He is the most bust proof of all our prospects imho and reminds me a ton of Jordan Eberle who just so happens to be one of his close friends.

[Caged Great]

Originally Posted by Rick M.

Thanks for all the hard work CG! These are very useful. I hope you'll repeat the exercise after training camp.

I probably will do a scaled back version that will contrast what they did in July vs September. In both of the past two seasons, almost everyone played similar to how they were on the ice in July, so it would be pretty much a repeat article.

[FBI]

The more I read about our defensive prospect depth, the more excited I am about them, and the less excited I am about Engelland.

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by FBI

The more I read about our defensive prospect depth, the more excited I am about them, and the less excited I am about Engelland.

AC needs to do an Engelland highlights package.

*insert 20 minutes of icings plus his two goals against Dallas*

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

AC needs to do an Engelland highlights package.

*insert 20 minutes of icings plus his two goals against Dallas*

While this is pretty accurate, taking on two Canucks at the same time in the playoffs and more than handling both of them is still one of the greatest things I've ever seen. You cannot fault either his courage, or his will to win in crunch time.

I'll be happy if he's relegated to our 7th man this year though. Not crazy about what he offers on a regular shift.

[Vulcan]

When Engelland is paired with Smid, GranteedEVs post is pretty accurate. If Engelland is put with a more mobile partner with a good first pass, he looks a lot better. Watching him making a short pass to Brodie and let Brodie take over from there was effective.

[DJones]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

When Engelland is paired with Smid, GranteedEVs post is pretty accurate. If Engelland is put with a more mobile partner with a good first pass, he looks a lot better. Watching him making a short pass to Brodie and let Brodie take over from there was effective.

Put anyone with Brodie and they are going to look better.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by DJones

Put anyone with Brodie and they are going to look better.

Sure but Engelland doesn't need to be put with Brodie. I could see him put with Russell and being an effective pairing as they both complement each other. Russell being a small, good skating, good passing LD with Engelland being a big tough RD who can clear the crease and break up the cycle.

[SebC]

I think your ratings are probably miscallibrated: most of our prospects being above NHL-average in all areas seems unlikely.

[Caged Great]

Originally Posted by SebC

I think your ratings are probably miscallibrated: most of our prospects being above NHL-average in all areas seems unlikely.

If a player has all average skills, they are not going to stay in the NHL for very long. A guy like David Van Der Gulik would be an "average at everything" type player in my mind. Usually a player needs several above average skills to stick, and several higher end ones to be more than a 4th liner.

Plus this is a skill evaluation, not an NHL readiness rating. Baertschi had plenty of high end skills but hasn't been able to use his skills properly to translate to the NHL. Just because you have the tools doesn't mean that you know how to use them. A guy like Anders Eriksson would have had a large amount of high ratings, but he was not good at thinking the game.

We do have a high end prospect pool, so it does make some sense that a bunch of them would have higher ratings. They are good. We will have a problem in the next couple years with trying to find spots for them all.

[Jay Random]

Myself, based on how you've described the prospects, I would tag 2.5 as ‘acceptable NHL level’ rather than ‘average NHL level’. Fourth-liners and 6th defencemen are not average NHL players; they're below average. I suspect the true NHL average is somewhere around 3, if you include not only the players on rosters at a given moment, but also those who have a cup of coffee at various times through the year.

Incidentally, I really like your five-point rating scale. I've used something similar in the past for my own purposes, but yours breaks down the skills in better detail.

[Caged Great]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

Myself, based on how you've described the prospects, I would tag 2.5 as ‘acceptable NHL level’ rather than ‘average NHL level’. Fourth-liners and 6th defencemen are not average NHL players; they're below average. I suspect the true NHL average is somewhere around 3, if you include not only the players on rosters at a given moment, but also those who have a cup of coffee at various times through the year.

Incidentally, I really like your five-point rating scale. I've used something similar in the past for my own purposes, but yours breaks down the skills in better detail.

That would be a better way of describing it.