Notes from Day 1 of Prospect Development Camp

Going to format this Elliotte Friedman 32 Thoughts, but without all 32 of them. Just going to list off what I saw and heard while attending day 1 of the Prospect Development camp:

• Justin Poirier got dinged in the draft process for maybe not having the cleanest skating known to man. But once he gets up to speed, he FLYS. Very excited for tomorrow to see how he is with the puck.

• A funnier moment happened after Lucas Mercuri did a 6kg resistance skate. He finished the skate and the man working the machine yells out, “Your 1kg and 6kg time are the same! Either you are a bad skater, or something went wrong!” So they had Mercuri go again. He finishes the skate and the guy goes, “Much Better!!”

• Ruslan Khazheyev is a GIANT. The first thing I noticed when I walked in this morning was just the hunking size of him.

• Charles-Alexis Legault got dressed a little bit earlier than everyone else in the second group. Went out to skate during the first group’s testing, took a lap, and fell on his ass. Most of group one had a good laugh about it and he was laughing pretty hard himself.

• Pretty sure I got the worst run of Trikozov doing his testing. It was only that one run where he ended up near fully vertical. His skating was very fluid on each of the other runs he had.

• I got to have an extremely casual conversation with Yegor Velmakin with no recordings or anything, just conversation. His English is incredibly good! But he talked about how he didn’t think he had the greatest year with Dinamo Minsk/Dinamo-Molodechno. He continuously mentioned that all he wants to do is work, as it’s his number 1 value.

• He said “One more year and I will be good, very good.” I believe him. His work ethic seems unreal.

• Also, I know I mentioned that he wants Wendy’s. I cannot remember whether he said he wanted it or had it, a consequence of not recording any of the conversation. I made sure to mention that he had to try either of Cook-Out or Bojangles if the diet allowed it.

• We spoke with Felix Unger Sorum and he very clearly mentioned that this year, he had shorts with him. Last year, he only brought long pants.

• Unger Sorum spoke very highly about his time with Leksands IF in the SHL. Said that it made him a better player and he was grateful for all the opportunities they gave him.

• He’s such a soft-spoken player that it’s honestly hard to hear him sometimes. But he hadn’t given much thought about where he was going to end up playing this year. Said it was cool to be around the NHL training camp up until the last moment and that he learned a lot.

• Lastly, Unger Sorum knows that he probably needs to add a little weight to his frame. He’s bulked up a little in the past year but he didn’t know how much.

• Speaking with Cam Abbott, he spoke incredibly well of the city of Chicago. Very excited to get there and learn about the city, the team, the history, all of it. Says they have the most passionate fanbase in the league, easily.

• Mentioned that his team might not have a ton of size going into next year (skater-wise, we all know Khazheyev is a giant in net) but he has some experience in dealing with that shortcoming.

• Lastly, he mentioned that he loves players who love to get better. That put in the extra work, the extra effort. Mentioned, specifically, Nils Hoglander and Marco Kasper as prime examples.

That’s all for day 1! Tomorrow is skills day, which should be a lot more involved.