Observations from Scrimmage #2

Just a couple of quick notes as today was the second scrimmage and also the shortest day of development camp.

• Travis Boyd is unbelievable. He has incredible hockey sense and vision way beyond his 17 years. He has the innate ability to see exactly how a play is forming, and set up several chances and goals.
• Dmitri Orlov is very strong and makes great hits, but if he has the puck, he carries it way too far into the zone, nearly to the crease sometimes. It leaves just one defenseman back at the blue line, and if a breakaway forms the other way, Orlov is totally behind the play and in trouble. He has to learn how to reel in his excitement for contributing offensively and find a balance between contributing while remaining defensive-minded. I'm sure the coaches will try to get him to adjust that aspect of his game.
• Someone I may try to talk to at some point is T.J. Syner. He's very small (probably 5'6") but he's incredibly fast and very strong. I'm not sure if he's contributed any points in scrimmages (scoring is not being announced in the rink after goals), but he has an interesting skill set.
• Garrett Mitchell's shootout goal was gorgeous. A Twitter follower compared it to Matt Hendricks' chosen shootout move, and I don't disagree. He scored the lone shootout goal to win the scrimmage for Group A.
• Philipp Grubauer has been getting better every day. He was very sharp in the scrimmage. He stopped all shootout attempts, even boldly slapping away with his stick Stanislav Galiev's attempt. (a wonderful YouTube user got video of the whole shootout, catching Mitchell's lovely goal at about 0:48 and Grubauer slapping the puck right out out Galiev's grasp at 1:19)
• There were two fights in today's game, both involving Scott Wietecha. He fought both Garrett Mitchell and later, Danick Paquette. The fight with Mitchell was fairly tame, just a little bit of grappling, and the two were separated. The fight with Paquette was much more spirited. Paquette, in his area of expertise, was not hesitant to throw punches. Paquette got the take down, and Wietecha had to go to the dressing room for repairs. When he returned, his right eye was already massively swollen and it looked like he also had a cut above his eye.

Danick Paquette met the media after the scrimmage, and went to the main focus area in front of all the cameras and lights. As he approached the microphone, he was slightly awed that he was getting the attention, and said (my audio was not on at the time), "I feel like President!"

And now, presented without further comment: Danick Paquette.