The Flyers Rookie Camp is set to open on Saturday at the SkateZone, with on ice practice sessions from Sept 15-17. The camp culminates with a game against the Washington Capitals rookies at the Caps’ practice facility in suburban Virginia on Sept 18.
The practice sessions are free to the public. Practices begin at 10:00 a.m. and run for about two hours. The roster is as follows:
Goalies: Jacob DeSerres, Jeremy Duchesne, Michael-Lee Teslak
Forwards: Josh Beaulieu, Rob Bellamy, Frederik Cabana, Matt Clackson, Steve Downie, Claude Giroux, Jon Kalinski, Garrett Klotz, David Laliberte, Ned Lukacevic, Patrick Maroon, Jon Matsumoto, Andreas Nodl, Gino Pisellini, Darroll Powe, Nate Raduns, Zac Rinaldo
Defense: Oskars Bartulis, Marc-Andre Bourdon, Jason DeSantis, Patrick Hersley, Kevin Marshall, Ryan Parent, Tim Ramholt, Mike Ratchuk, Luca Sbisa, Chris Zarb
Rookie camp is not to be confused with the Prospect Camp (which was held July 20 to July 26). The prospect camp is more conditioning oriented than anything else and includes players that will not be at full training camp with the veterans. The rookie camp is essentially a jump start on the preseason camp the veterans will attend next week.
The main Flyers Training Camp starts Saturday September 20. Russian prospect Denis Bodrov has notified the Flyers that he will remain with HC Lada Togliatti the remainder of the 2008-09 season, rather than leaving the team to attend Flyers training camp without a contract. Look for him next year.
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With rookie camp set to start, now’s a good time to look at some of the reasons why certain prospects get underrated or overrated in their draft years. Any or all of the following can come into play:
1) Size, strength and speed. When fans look at draft prospects, the tendency is to focus on statistics. Scouts, however, try to focus more on the players’ collection of physical tools as well as pure hockey skill and hockey sense. If a player is big and is considered a plus skater, he may be taken sooner than a more skilled smaller guy or someone who is considered an average or below-average skater.
Sometimes this approach proves wise, sometimes it leads teams to leave better prospects on the board: for instance, a Shawn Antoski (1990, first round, 18th overall) over a Doug Weight (1990, second round, 34th overall) or, even worse, a Teemu Riihijarvi (1995, first round, 12th overall) over just about anyone could play a lick of hockey. An overemphasis on size led the Flyers to take a string of second- and third- round misses from the mid-1990s to early 2000s on big-framed defensemen who couldn’t play (Ian Forbes, Jason Beckett, an out-of-shape Shane Kenney, Kris Mallette and others).
2) Level of competition. This is changing to a degree, as we know see more and more players from the USHL, U.S. high schools, Tier II juniors in Canada and lesser European leagues get chosen. A few years ago, you’d never have seen a player like Kyle Turris picked in the top three if he had yet to play major junior hockey. Nowadays, prospects come from a much wider array of sources.
3) Injuries. Reported and unreported injuries can throw off assessments of a prospect. A scout may not be seeing a player at his best, or an injury can force a player out of a widely scouted tournament.
Teams also have assess whether the player has a style that leaves him vulnerable to injuries (such as a tendency to skate with your head down). St. Louis Blues prospect Lars Eller is a good recent example of a player for whom injuries are something of concern.
4) Tournament performance. Especially good or poor play at a tournament can get a player drafted higher or dropped in a team’s rankings. For instance, Colton Gillies made himself into a first-round pick by Minnesota last year because of his eye-opening play for Team Canada, despite a so-so year with Saskatoon.
5) Program and locale. This is a secondary consideration for most NHL teams, but when a prospect plays for certain programs with reputations for success and strong coaching, it can help a player’s chances.
On the flip side, there are teams and locales that not as many scouts get to on a frequent basis. Detroit European scout Hakan Andersson is a master at scouring the more obscure Swedish programs. On a similar note, it was said at this year’s draft that playing in Rouyn-Noranda caused Flyers prospect Marc-Andre Bourdon to slip under the radar until late in the drafting period because of his team’s location.
6) Off-ice and character issues. Off-ice question marks, reputations for laziness or clashes with coaches or teammates can knock a player down in the draft.
For instance, everyone in hockey new about Patrick O’Sullivan’s issues caused by his relationship with his abusive father, and it pushed him out of the first round of the 2003 draft, although everyone also knew of his undeniable talent.
7) The Euro factor.For most Swedes and Finns, it’s pretty much a non-issue. But for Czechs, Slovaks and especially Russians, there are still some old beliefs that die hard, and each player must work a little bit harder to overcome. Especially with Russians, the current lack of a transfer agreement also makes signability (e.g. Alexei Cherepanov) and sustainability (Alexander Radulov) into potential headache.
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Trivia question: The Flyers hold an unofficial NHL record for having the most first-round picks from a single draft year eventually play for the team. There was one NHL draft that produced nine first-round selections who later played at least briefly for the Flyers, although the Flyers only had one pick of their own.
Can you name the draft year and the players? Hint: I referenced one of the players earlier in the blog.
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On Monday night, The Philadelphia Flyers Alumni held a ceremony in Atlantic City to honored the six 50-goal scorers in franchise history: Bill Barber, Tim Kerr, Reggie Leach, John LeClair, Rick MacLeish and Mark Recchi
In my next blog, I will look at which of the aforementioned players I consider the best sniper in team history.
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Earlier this week on IIHF.com, I took an in-depth look at the remarkable
story of ice hockey in Puerto Rico.
It was one of those articles that virtually writes itself, because there were so many colorful, humorous and sometimes even touching stories to tell. Stories like those are a writer’s dream, because they require very little effort to make them seem different from all the routine stories you have to produce over the course of the year.
I don’t want to give too much away, but the Puerto Rican ice hockey community has a choice of two rinks on which to (at least attempt to) play: One is an ice rink located on the beach. The other is in a church complex in which visitors have to walk underneath large figurines of dinosaurs to get to the rink.
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Trivia answer: The 1990 draft produced nine first-round picks who later played for the Flyers, although most had unremarkable Flyers careers: Petr Nedved (2nd overall), Keith Primeau (3rd overall), Mike Ricci (the Flyers’ own pick, 4th overall), Derian Hatcher (8th overall), John Slaney (9th overall), Turner Stevenson (12th overall), Mark Greig (15th overall), Karl Dykhuis (16th overall) and Shawn Antoski (18th overall).
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