Prospects camp, Day 1

8 a.m. on a Sunday is really too early for hockey, or much anything else for that matter. But I was able to get out there for the morning session of the camp, and afterward I grabbed interviews with Jack Johnson, Lauri Tukonen, Thomas Hickey, Patrick O’Sullivan, Scott Parse and Marc Crawford. No rhyme or reason to those six…they were just available. I’ll grab different guys in the coming days. I’ll transcribe those interviews and have them up over the course of the afternoon/evening.

Here’s the list of the guys who are participating as part of the “gold” group today and tomorrow. (The second group, the one that’s practicing Thursday-Saturday, is made up primarily of recent draft picks.)

FORWARDS
12 — Patrick O’Sullivan
34 — Lauri Tukonen
47 — Vladimir Dravecky
54 — Teddy Purcell
58 — David Meckler
61 — Trevor Lewis
63 — Scott Parse
68 — Brady Murray
70 — Matt Moulson
73 — John Zeiler

DEFENSEMEN
2 — Richard Petiot
33 — Jack Johnson
37 — Thomas Hickey
42 — Joe Piskula
49 — Peter Harrold
56 — Joe Ryan
62 — Niclas Andersen
64 – Patrik Hersley
71 — Brian Boyle

GOALIES
31 — Mike Ouzas
36 — Jeff Zatkoff
45 — Jonathan Bernier
75 — Linden Rowat

The guys in the gold jerseys are primarily former (or perhaps some current) Jr. Kings. Team officials have taken to calling them “Rudys,” in reference to the well-known Notre Dame walk-on player. A couple of them really held their own with the prospects and one got into a bit of a shoving match with Brady Murray during the first session.

The forward drills were surprisingly intense. Lots of one-on-one battles and work in the corners and in front of the net. The defensemen seemed to be doing more skating drills and the goalies were very individual-drill oriented, and the Kings brought video cameras onto the ice to record them individually.

It’s a bit early to talk about impressions. Even Crawford said that this week is more about improvement than competition. Wednesday night’s scrimmage will be a good chance to see some competition. But if you’re looking for some initial thoughts…Boyle did indeed play defense and he looked smoother than I expected, for someone who doesn’t have a ton of experience at the blue line. Hickey is tiny, but remember that he’s younger and much less experienced than most of the other guys out there. Johnson looked very solid and, when I talked to him later, seemed to have put on some muscle in the last couple months. None of the forwards particularly jumped out, but again, they were working on a lot of battle drills. Zeiler seemed to have a lot of energy out there.

I’ll start transcribing interviews in a bit. I’ll probably skip the practice this afternoon (in other words, I’ll probably be asleep) so if anyone goes — it’s from 4-5 p.m. — and wants to post their observations, that’s both welcomed and encouraged. I’ll go out to tomorrow’s afternoon practice.

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