Tuesday was pretty quiet. No scrimmage and they had the afternoon off.They wrapped up the skate with a contest between squads. It was tied at the end and Evander Kane showed off his scoring with the contest on the line. After the session was finished some of the guys went downtown to get a tour of the NHL locker room and Philips Arena. Others went to the huge Mall of Georgia--apparently they don't have such things in Sweden.
I have posted my two more Draft Day interviews of Ben Chiarot and Cody Sol. I have more stuff on the way as I was able to talk to Levko Koper, Jimmy Bubnick and Eric O'Dell. I'll post their comments over the next several days. Tomorrow I plan to visit with Jordan Samuels which will complete all of the 2009 picks. I still have a ton of Evander Kane stuff to work through and post.
Wednesday will be the final day and it will wrap up with the final scrimmage at 4pm. The scrimmages have been very enjoyable to watch and also very revealing. For example, Eric O'Dell and Jimmy Bubnick didn't really stand out in the drills but distinguished themselves in game action. Cody Sol and Zach Redmond surpassed my expectations. A few people disappointed me, but I'll hold off listing any names until after the final scrimmage is complete.
I have attended parts of every Prospect Camp in Thrashers history (OK, so the history is not that long) and in my opinion there is more depth of talent than I can ever recall seeing. In the past there were always a few guys that you could list as "probably will make the NHL" and some "maybe NHLers" and a large number of " highly unlikely to make it" guys. This year the number of "probably" and "maybe" players was much better. In general it seems to me that the skating ability and the puck skills were higher than at past camps.
I'm encouraged not only by the top end scoring line talent of Evander Kane, Jeremy Morin, (Angelo Esposito) and John Albert, but also an abundance of guys I can easily imagine filling out the 3rd and 4th lines and staffing the PK unit. Two way forwards like Carl Klingberg, Spencer Machacek, Riley Holzapfel, Levko Koper could not only "fill out" those checking lines, in some cases they could be better than NHL average checking line players. That 2012-2013 Atlanta Thrashers hockey squad could be very very exciting to watch--could we be watching the foundation of a contending hockey club?
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