Faber: A recap and 6 takeaways from the Canucks development camp scrimmage
By Faber
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The on-ice portion of Canucks development camp closed out on Wednesday night as the 40-man roster split into two teams and competed in two 25-minute periods.
Mikael Samuelson and Mike Komisarek were the coaches and they did a draft to decide on teams.
We will link the Canucks’ highlight video and then discuss the goals that were scored before we dive into our six takeaways from the game.
Braeden Bowman kicked off the scoring early, putting team blue on the board with a 1-0 lead.
Bowman wasn’t even included on the roster, so it was funny to see him be the first goal-scorer of the game. Bowman is a 20-year-old for the Guelph Storm in the OHL. He scored 33 goals and added 39 assists in 54 OHL games last season.
He’s 6’2″ and is from Kitchener, Ontario. It’s an interesting camp invite and ties together with the Canuncks’ ties with the Guelph in the OHL — in which they had four prospects at this development camp who are players from the Storm or were drafted by them in the CHL import draft (Vilmer Alriksson).
Another OHL invitee found the back of the net next. Colby Saganiuk had a slow year in the OHL this past season but he had some jump throughout this camp. We liked the pass from Kirill Kudryavtsev on the Saganiuk goal.
The next goal of the game came from Dmitry Zlodeyev, who drew a penalty and was given a partial breakaway. He went to the backhand on the breakaway and buried it. We will have more on Zlodeyev later — he was a demon during the scrimmage.
We had to go single out the clip of the fourth goal of the game. Josh Bloom makes a tremendous play at the blue line to gain possession while still attacking the net. He then makes a pro-level saucer pass across to Jonathan Lekkerimäki, who buried it into the back of the net.
The game went into overtime with a 2-2 score and it didn’t take long for team Samuelsson to clinch the win.
Josh Bloom, who had a great game, picked up the puck after what looked like a high-stick. He then came down and fired the puck between the five-hole to giver his team the win.
The team then went into a bonus shootout and some of the nicer goals came from Vilmer Alriksson, Max Sasson, and Sawyer Mynio.
Six takeaways
- Zlodeyev was certainly the most physical player in the game. He was excellent on the forecheck, he threw big hits, and earned a penalty shot during the game and made no mistake when he went to the backhand.
- Ty Mueller earned himself two penalty shots but was denied on both attempts as he looked to go with a shot under the blocker both times.
- Josh Bloom had to be our player of the game. He was excellent in transition, picked up an assist and the game-winning goal, and just looked like he was a step up on the rest of the prospects in terms of consistency. We saw some players look strong throughout camp but Bloom was one of the only players who consistently controlled pucks, rarely made any mistakes in drills, and gave us similar vibes to what we saw from Arshdeep Bains last year.
- Elias Pettersson was the best defenceman on the ice through the scrimmage and probably through the whole camp. He played with calmness throughout the scrimmage and was excellent in his own zone when it came to defending as well as moving the puck. A lot of Pettersson’s shifts were spent with Tom Willander on his side and though Willander had some flashes throughout the scrimmage, it was D-Petey who looked like the best defenceman on the ice. We’ve got high hopes for D-Petey’s 2023-24 SHL season. He will also be participating in the World Junior Summer Showcase that begins on July 21st.
- We liked a lot of what Jonathan Lekkerimäki did during the scrimmage. He certainly led the teams in terms of shot attempts and shots on net. Lekkerimäki used his toe-drag shot to create open windows for shots. He scored on the beautiful pass from Bloom and blocked a couple of shots as well. There were times he left you wanting more but there were times where he delivered what you were hoping to see — hopefully we see the latter as he makes the jump back into the SHL.
- Lucas Forsell impressed again with his play. He has a combination of effort and skill that gets you excited about the 19-year-old’s future. Forsell will be in the SHL next season and is projected to see a lot of top-six time as well as minutes on the power play. If he continues to develop at the same pace that he has been since being drafted, the Canucksa may get themselves an NHL player out of a seventh-round pick.
We will do a recap of the entire development camp to put a bow on the week but it was great to see these prospect participate in a competitive scenario with the scrimmage.
Keep an eye out for our full-week recap, coming soon.
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