Hi from the penultimate day of development camp. Today is a mix of scrimmages and skills work ahead of tomorrow's tournament. I'll have live updates below, to be read from the bottom up.
► FOLLOW ALONG
• Main takeaway from today is that Mike Stothers is hilarious. Lots of videos from the locker room uploading now.
• Injured free agent invite defenseman Maleek McGowan is standing on the other side of the glass watching practice, Kyle Dubas just went up and shook his hand and talked to him for a bit.
• To add to the below thing about "standouts" from scrimmages meaning nothing, I went and looked into two semi-recent development camp standouts in past years: One quit hockey to become a missionary and another never went pro and went to Canadian university hockey after junior. The little skills drills are even less meaningful for finding standouts. If I sit here and iso-cam Kalle Kangas all day eventually I'll get something mildly impressive that I could post about and make him out to be a crazy good get.
• Interesting note: One of the guest coaches here is Marco Raimondo, who is the goaltending coach of Victoriaville in the QMJHL where Gabriel D'Aigle plays.
• Just a note, again, that this isn't an evaluation camp and the main goal here is for coaches to get to know players, get to know how they learn, and for the players to get acclimated around the organization. A bunch of the guys have barely skated as of late before this. Anyone talking about "standouts" through what they've done so far is full of it. Even the actual tournament at the end, players aren't going close to 100%, and the "standouts" are often like, an undrafted free agent who never goes pro. If you want anything meaningful, wait for the September Prospects Challenge.
• Hey, the first thing all week that actually looks like hockey. A little three-on-three scrimmaging going on right now.
• Wilkes-Barre/Scranton head coach Kirk MacDonald will speak today, as well as new assistant coach Mike Stothers.
• The full schedule:
10:00 a.m. – Team Stevens/Team Patrick practice (FedEx Rink) 10:00 a.m. – Team Johnston skills (Covestro Rink) 10:30 a.m. – Team Stevens/Team Johnston practice (FedEx Rink) 10:30 a.m. – Team Patrick skills (Covestro Rink) 11:20 a.m. – Team Patrick/Team Johnston practice (FedEx Rink) 11:20 a.m. – Team Stevens skills (Covestro Rink)
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THE ASYLUM
Taylor Haase
1:42 pm - 07.06.2025Cranberry, Pa.Final: Development camp, Day 4
Hi from the penultimate day of development camp. Today is a mix of scrimmages and skills work ahead of tomorrow's tournament. I'll have live updates below, to be read from the bottom up.
► FOLLOW ALONG
• Main takeaway from today is that Mike Stothers is hilarious. Lots of videos from the locker room uploading now.
• Injured free agent invite defenseman Maleek McGowan is standing on the other side of the glass watching practice, Kyle Dubas just went up and shook his hand and talked to him for a bit.
• To add to the below thing about "standouts" from scrimmages meaning nothing, I went and looked into two semi-recent development camp standouts in past years: One quit hockey to become a missionary and another never went pro and went to Canadian university hockey after junior. The little skills drills are even less meaningful for finding standouts. If I sit here and iso-cam Kalle Kangas all day eventually I'll get something mildly impressive that I could post about and make him out to be a crazy good get.
• Interesting note: One of the guest coaches here is Marco Raimondo, who is the goaltending coach of Victoriaville in the QMJHL where Gabriel D'Aigle plays.
• Just a note, again, that this isn't an evaluation camp and the main goal here is for coaches to get to know players, get to know how they learn, and for the players to get acclimated around the organization. A bunch of the guys have barely skated as of late before this. Anyone talking about "standouts" through what they've done so far is full of it. Even the actual tournament at the end, players aren't going close to 100%, and the "standouts" are often like, an undrafted free agent who never goes pro. If you want anything meaningful, wait for the September Prospects Challenge.
• Hey, the first thing all week that actually looks like hockey. A little three-on-three scrimmaging going on right now.
• Wilkes-Barre/Scranton head coach Kirk MacDonald will speak today, as well as new assistant coach Mike Stothers.
• The full schedule:
10:00 a.m. – Team Stevens/Team Patrick practice (FedEx Rink)
10:00 a.m. – Team Johnston skills (Covestro Rink)
10:30 a.m. – Team Stevens/Team Johnston practice (FedEx Rink)
10:30 a.m. – Team Patrick skills (Covestro Rink)
11:20 a.m. – Team Patrick/Team Johnston practice (FedEx Rink)
11:20 a.m. – Team Stevens skills (Covestro Rink)
Want to participate in our comments?
Want an ad-free experience?
Become a member, and enjoy premium benefits! Make your voice heard on the Steelers, Penguins and Pirates, and hear right back from tens of thousands of fellow Pittsburgh sports fans worldwide! Plus, access all our premium content, including Dejan Kovacevic columns, Friday Insider, daily Live Qs with the staff, more! And yeah, that's right, no ads at all!
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