Rookie Camp September 14, 2008

I attended rookie camp this morning, missing the first half hour of the scrimmage because I slept in.  However, I'll provide my small insight on what I saw.  You can read the scrimmage recap at the Avs Official Site and as always, check out Jori's site for much better information than I will provide here. 

First, I must preface with the fact that I was really only focused on three players; Hensick, Jones, and Delmas.  Hensick was on team grey with Jones and don't be fooled by the final score.  Team grey spent most of the scrimmage in team black's zone dominating play and getting pucks to the net.  So, Trevor Cann was not particularly busy.  Both Keserich and Delmas looked solid in net.  I was particularly impressed with Delmas' athleticism and quick movements. He always seemed to get his skate back to the post to cut off the rebound.  It was interesting, however, that on the last penalty shot, team grey was shouting "go five hole!" to the shooter.  

In my opinion, Hensick looked slow and tired.  Mind you, these boys were out on 3-5 minute shifts, but Hensick was not skating near as fast as Jones most of the time.  Jones and Hensick definitely have chemistry playing together, with Jones being the better of the two. Jones was all over the ice, shooting pucks on net, and creating plays.  There were a couple of plays, however, where Jones showed he still needs to work on his game.  On one play, Jones brought the puck deep in the zone but instead of shooting, looked to pass the puck. None of his teammates were open and the play was broken up. Additionally, Jones is still shooting the puck at the directly at the goalie's chest  more often than not which is something we saw a lot last season.  Still, Jones was the best player on the ice in my eyes.  

I would be remiss if I didn't mention Rob Drummond's goal. There was a skirmish close to team grey's blue line.  Next thing you know, Drummond is up ice with the rest of the players trailing him like a pack of wolves.  Using his speed, Drummond flew into team black's zone and puck the puck home top shelf.  It was awesome and the crowd went wild (well as wild as 30 people or so can get).  

I will be attending the big-boy camp next weekend and I hope to video tape it for the out of town folks who cannot attend.     

Edit: I forgot to mention both Cody Burki and Jack Combs were injured during the scrimmage taking pucks to the legs/stomach (just guessing. I didn't see exactly where the pucks hit).  Both came back on the ice  to finish the game  but  Burki was skating  very tentatively.  Combs almost got in a fight after taking a facewash  from some player who slammed him into the glass after returning to the ice.  I guess we will see if the two players are effected in the coming days.