Development Camp Update

by Tomorrows Blues on Jul 13, 2007 6:42 AM CDT

by Brian Weidler, "Game Time" Prospect Columnist

A few brief notes on the Blues' Development Camp, currently taking place at St. Louis Mills.

1. Players that have been impressive in drills to date include T.J. Oshie, Patrik Berglund, Reto Berra, Michal Birner, Martin Kariya, Alexander HellstrÃ¶m, David Perron, and Jonas Junland.

2. Oshie in particular looks ready to make the jump, but all indications are still that he intends to honor his commitment to North Dakota and return for at least one more season, and one more kick at the can for a National Championship.

3. Per Jeremy Rutherford at the STL Today "Blues Talk" message board, Nikolai Lemtyugov was scheduled to attend the development Camp, but is having some visa issues. He is expected to be at training camp, and has signed a three-year entry-level contract, so look for him to be skating in Peoria this winter.

An interview with David Perron will be posted this weekend, as well as further and more in-depth analysis after the Prospect Game tonight (7:00 PM at the Mills). In the meantime, to whet your appetite for the Perron interview, here are some pictures of Perron from the Entry Draft.

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As always, remember... "if we do not prepare for ourselves the role of the hammer, there will be nothing left but that of the anvil." Auf wiedersehen.

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I attended part of camp Monday with the Prospect Department, but I obviously didn’t have enough knowledge to actually call myself part of the department.

To me, I was really impressed with Oshie, Junland, Jay Bariball and Michael Birner. Erik Johnson looked rusty and was left shaking his head a couple times when he misfired during a drill. Murray went out of his way to watch him and talk with him between drills. But during two-man break-ins, he teamed with Oshie (I called it the EJ-TJ Show) and they showed some magic with their skating and puckhandling. EJ liked how they played together and gave Oshie a friendly tap on the shinguards with his stick.

Murray does run a pretty tight ship with him and his gaggle of assistants during practice (at least one coach from Peoria is up and couple guys we didn’t recognize). Last player to the huddle around Murray has to skate a lap. Seeing the kids sprint to the coach when he blows the whistle is pretty entertaining.

I’ll be at the scrimmage Friday night and hopefully part of practice Friday afternoon.

by Brad Lee on Jul 13, 2007 10:08 AM CDT reply actions