Recap of Day 1 of Development Camp

3 hours of pure skating drills

The start of Dev camp is always slower, since they spend the day getting skating benchmarks. But it’s still informative, being able to watch these players in real life rather than on a screen. With that, here are my takeaways from Day 1 of Development Camp, 32 Thoughts style (same way I did it last year).

• I didn’t do a ton of research on Roman Bausov but I can confidently say he was the best skater today. The kid is 6’5 and moves like a hot knife through butter. It’s smooth, it’s effortless, and he covers an extraordinary amount of ground in a short amount of time.

• Fyodor Avramov continues to make a fan out of me, more than I already was. He’s a powerful skater for 6’3, with nice agility to go with it. Excited to see him in the skill drills tomorrow.

• Ivan Ryabkin impressed in the small area drills more than the resistance skate. His change of direction is very good. It’s the other aspects that need to continue development. Another guy I’m interested in seeing tomorrow in the skill drills.

• Jayden Perron and Michael Emerson were the best skaters in their group. Also, Blake Biondi (technically not a prospect) has an extremely impressive first few strides.

• Noel Fransen and Dominik Badinka are very nice people. Badinka mentioned that he didn’t have one specific are of his game he wanted to work on, he just wants to “get better at everything.”

• I liked Stanislav Yarovoi’s skating today. His work in the resistance skating was great.

• Another thing on Avramov, he and Alexander Siryatsky seem to be good friends. They were consistently messing with each other during the breaks. Avramov, especially, seems to have an expressive personality.

• Winners of the day (for me): Bausov, Avramov, Perron

Like I said, it was a slower day, with the only thing available to watch being the on ice testing. Tomorrow should be a much more fun day, with 2 different skills sessions.