Today's the last day of the Shawnigan Lake portion of this year's prospect development camp.
After one more session on the ice, the kids will head back to Vancouver for a visit to B.C. Children's Hosipital on Thursday, then the dreaded Grouse Grind hike on Friday.
It's nice to see the sun is visible again and the sky is slowly turning from grey back to blue here in Vancouver. There's only a tiny taste of smoke on my tongue after my run this morning, so hopefully air conditions will continue to improve for the boys before their big cardiovascular adventure.
Here are the highlights from yesterday's 3-on-3 tournament over on the island:
It looks like the offensive stars of the show were Brock Boeser and...Mackenze Stewart! That's a bit of an unexpected showing for the big defenseman from Red Deer.
Our community member Kevingram was at Shawnigan Lake yesterday and shared this excellent summary in the comments. It gives us lots of positives to focus on. Thanks for posting!
Just finished watching the 3-3 tourney in Shawnigan. I'm not a pro scout but I've played hockey my entire life and spend way too much time watching and reading about it. Here's a couple thoughts on the players on the ice.
Boeser's shot is everything they say it is. Kid sniped two goals in five minutes both of them on his back leg. Super impressed. Plays with a scowl and looks determined as hell.
McCann carries himself like he's the boss out there. Looks like Corey Perry and isn't afraid to mix it up. He's going to be a great NHLer. Fired a laser of a wrist shot from the top of the circle and scored.
Zhukenov was the biggest surprise, the kid has ridiculous hands and really good wheels. He could be an absolute steal. Didn't look out of place at all.
Subban surprised me too. He has super slick hands and doesn't look like he's too small to be out there. Half of the guys on the ice were 6'3". He has great vision and pick handling skills. Legitimately looked like his older brother out there a couple times.
Hutton looks like a good all around defenceman. Mobile, confident with the puck. Reminds me a bit of Chris Tanev.
Cederholm is a beast and has much better wheels then a few people on here have made it sound.
Lastly Mackenzie Stewart really made some smart plays and looks really confident. He has great potential if he's developed properly.
Didn't get to see Jake, Cole or Demko play either and I left feeling really stoked about the future of the team.
I guess that scowl we saw on Boeser's face when his name was called by the Canucks at the draft is just his game face! Since that moment, the kid has certainly made all the right moves and is quickly endearing himself to the fanbase with his character and his sniping abilities.
Boeser has been gamely blogging about the development camp over at Canucks.com and is coming across very well. You can read his entries for the first three days
here,
here and
here.
As noted above, Jake Virtanen was held off the ice yesterday after taking a hard hit on Monday from free-agent defenseman Matthew Caito. From
Jim Jamieson over at
The Province:
“I wasn’t expecting someone to absolutely blow me up, but it’s camp, it’s part of the game,” said Virtanen, who took a nick out of his chin on the hit and left the practice after being shaken up. “Some guys need to make impressions here, I’m sure he does. It’s a battle drill and that’s part of the game, so good on him.”
Virtanen says he feels fine and is just being held out of action for precautionary reasons.
Jamieson's story features some other interesting tidbits:
• Virtanen will be commuting from his home in Abbotsford in to Rogers Arena five days a week to work with strength and conditioning coach Roger Takahashi, starting right after development camp wraps up.
• In August, he'll get a break to attend the Team Canada World Junior development camp.
• Virtanen lost 15 pounds when he was hit hard by the flu while he was with Utica during the AHL playoffs. That may actually help him to find his way to his playing weight—he played most of last year at 215 but the Canucks want him closer to 205, with more muscle mass and less body fat.
• Virtanen is saying all the right things as far as learning from Bo Horvat's jump to the NHL last season and playing a 200-foot game:
“Yeah, I’ve paid quite a lot of attention to Bo, because he was in the same situation as I’ll be in this year,” said Virtanen. “He’s winning draws and killing penalties and as the season went on he moved up and when playoffs came around he’s scoring the first goal and being a big part of the team. That’s what I want to be.”
“Defence leads to offence, so we’re going to have to really focus on that this summer, he said. “If you do it in practice it’ll happen in a game. Just focusing on the little details. Going over video. That’ll be huge to work on in the summer.
“It’s an honour to get this opportunity. I’m going to take full advantage of it and definitely try to be on this team next year.”