HabsWorld.net --
The 2nd to last day of the development camp, the camp wraps up on Sunday. Kostitsyn and Archer both missed the practice today, likely due to injury.
9AM-10AM: Ribeiro shows up at camp and is one of the first skaters onto the ice at rink #4 (the goalies group). Ribeiro spends about 2 seconds on a skating drill before skating to the other side of the rink to work with the goalies for the rest of the practice. I fail to see the point of Ribeiro even showing up at this camp just to take shots on prospect goaltenders. I thought Mike would be working on his skating. Ribeiro was easily able to score goals against the young goalies. Mike’s shot is not very powerful (its weak) but he does have aim and knows where to shoot it. Lapierre (and then Flood) later joined Ribeiro to work with the goalies, Lapierre had more trouble finding the back of the net then Ribeiro did. Flood was even worse, he fanned on a few passes. Christopher Heino-Lindberg looked great today. Lindberg is a quick learner and will not be fooled twice by the same move/shot. Lindberg even showed off some of his skating, deking and stick-handling moves during a free skate, he must dream of being a forward.
The rest of the group practised the regular skating, and power-skating drills to finish up the hour.
10:30AM-12PM: Ribeiro/Dagenais are not on the ice for this session, Dagenais never even showed up today. Heino-Lindberg continues to impress me with his play, he stopped almost everything shot at him. For the first time in camp (that I’ve seen) the D’s are working alone with their own coach. The D’s practiced one on one techniques, stick checking, proper body position. The D’s later rejoined the rest of the team to practice some 1 on 1’s. Korpikari showed a nasty side of his game during this drill when he grabbed Lambert by the neck and tossed him to the ice. Surprisingly they both laughed about it then re-did the drill. The habs certainly have lots of big, strong, and mean defenders at this camp with O’Byrne, Archer, Cote, and Korpikari, if only they could say the same about the forwards. The top highlights from this practice were by Corey Locke (again) as he scored a variety of goals, Labelle also had a wicked goal off a bullet top corner wrist shot.
For the 2nd straight day Loic Lacasse stayed on the ice after practice to work on his game (with a few shooters). Loic looks like he is committed to improving his game. Kyle Chipchura is another player who stays on the ice as long as possible, Kyle gets along great with everyone on the team, he always has a smile on his face and routinely taps other players with his stick for encouragement.
Unfortunately it looks like the prospects will not scrimmage during this camp. They did not even put on the blue jerseys today for 4 on 4’s.
O.Labelle: Very fast player, he does not look very big although he has almost average size. He has a nice quick wrist-shot. I only started noticing him recently, he has gotten better as the camp has gone along. He might just get himself a contract because of this camp.
M.Lambert: He’s got size, he is very well balanced on his skates. He is a good skater but not an exceptional skater, his skating doesnt stand out when you watch him. He has a very quick release and a hard shot. He has been only average in defensive situations.
That wraps up day #9 from the development camp. Check back with HW for tomorrows report.
Some pictures from Day #9 (Bonus! More pictures then usual!)
