My thoughts on the 1st two days of scrimmages and rebuttal of 15's

I thought I would start this off with my rebuttal to Tyler's post on the 15's

Oddly enough, this wont appear like much of the other side of an argument, as I agree with what Tyler says.
First off, you hear the hype about drafted players, and you want to see if they stand out above all the ones in their age group.  You know that late round draft players that are big wildcards.  Are they really a wildcard, or did they not even show up at all? There are always undrafted players that take things by surprise.

But the biggest reason I love it is that it is KIDS, trying out.  Kids giving 120% of what they have.  Leaving everything on the ice, trying for a dream.  That is not to say that the older players don't do this, but by the time the veterans roll in, the roster is almost set, and they are having fun going through the motions of proving they have the talent to stay.  But the 15's don't have that ability.  Look bad or lazy in front of every scout we have, every coach we have, and everyone will remember it.  The same can be said about looking good.

As Tyler put it, this doesn't mean the dream is over or that their chances are gone, etc.  But of the 32 kids born in 1999 at camp, maybe 4 or 5 will play in the WHL.  For the rest, they can be proud of the fact they got to tryout, and use it as motivation for the future.

The one thing I want make perfectly clear, Every player out there and every parent of those players should feel so proud they got the chance to tryout at this high of level.  Everyone of them has the ability to play at the level, there may just be a couple more players with more ability.  I would not be ashamed for anything that happens.  UNLESS, you don't leave it all on the ice.

So now that is over, on to what I thought about the 3 scrimmages I have watched.

To me, there are 4 players that stand out head and shoulders above all the others.  And I am talking about talent, and not how tall they are.  And not to anyone surprises, they are all 16's.  I would keep all 4 on the team (assuming they are committed to the WHL), but I am guessing they only keep 3 (and those three are already signed (Volcan, Elder, and Khaira).  Schuldhaus is the one that really impressed me and kind of came out of no where (being a 5th round pick).

The other 16's appeared to each be just one step below those four.

Now the 15's that I talked so much about above.  I think I have a different opinion on them that others do. Each year, 3 or 4 stand out.  Two for the reason of being better then the rest, and two for being noticed because of their mistakes.  This year, each scrimmage I walked away very confused, because no one stood out very much to me.  Now some people will say "Yikes, that cant be good", but I think of it more as a GREAT sign.  No one stood out because they all had very good shifts and a couple bad shifts.  For every very good forward, there was a very good defender to counter that.  Colin Alexander (Director of player personal, I think is his title) did a very good job of distributing the teams.  I will also say the goalies all had flashes of greatness.

These scrimmages are mostly where you see the individual talent come out, because the players for the most part don't know each other.  They do not know where their line mates will go.  No chemistry.  Not a ton of flow.  So you really notice a play where the forward goes through three players and puts a shot in the top corner.  But you also notice the three players that let that happen.  And this year, those types of plays were few.  It can be frustrating watching a forward bring the puck off the boards and attacking the net, instead of passing to the wide open defender at the point for the shot.  Just as it is frustrating watching a 2 on 1 where the player with the puck always shoots.  But that is what also brings players out and gets them noticed, is making everyone around them better by making that pass, giving up your great chance for someone else to have a better chance.  Basically, being a team player not really knowing your teammates.

The hitting and physical play picked up in each session along with the pace.  You could tell players started relaxing and starting to work together more.  More players started not liking each other, taking late shots, big hits, going back at each other.  Again, it is the players giving their 120% that makes it better and better.  Some players that had better games in scrimmage yesterday had no so great games today, and the opposite true.

To end it all, HOCKEY IS BACK, and that is the best thing of all.