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Thursday, December 13, 2007
Today turned out to be an optional practice
for the team. As such, here are the players who practiced:
Kari
Slater
Thorburn
McCarthy
Haydar
Zhitnik
Boulton
I did not stay the entire practice as it was not all that exciting
to watch the 7 players who did practice do their drills.
The drill(s) I saw centered around passing in the neutral zone
followed by 1 or 2 of the players taking the pass and going in to
shoot on Kari. The passing was both touch passes as well as tape to
tape open ice passes.
There were about 23 fans in attendance. Some of them left after a
few minutes to wait out next to the player parking lot for
autographs as the players drove out of the facility. It looked like
all the players were in the facility but just not on the ice.
No observations today because, as I said before, there were only 7
players skating and there was not much to observe.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Little sent to Chicago and Haydar on
waivers....glad I got Bryan to sign that stick today...
Around 20 people in attendance for practice today. This is the
second day in a row where there was a TV camera on site. Hope that
trend (the TV camera) continues.
Popovic was on the ice 30 minutes prior to the scheduled practice
time of 10 am. Moose and Kari came out shortly thereafter followed
by Havelid, Recchi, Slater, Dupuis, Enstrom, and Little. Today was a
bit different in that none of the forwards took shots on the
goalies. Steve Weeks did the shooting on the goalies.
Waddell was on the ice the entire practice.
Drills today were variations of the normal drills which we routinely
see. Puck was dumped behind defensive side goal and was passed out
by D men to forward to took pass at blue line and shot. Then, next
time around same drill except forward was waiting next to offensive
side goal for deflection.
There was a transition drill today where 10 players (plus goalies)
were on the ice. The D men would pass to their 3 forwards who would
carry the puck into the offensive zone with little resistance from
other 2 D men. Once in the zone other 3 forwards would come onto the
ice to match up with the 2 D men on the other end of the ice. The
puck was shot and then transitioned into the other zone. There was
alot of tape to tape passing in this drill. The D men and forwawards
were constantly switching in and out.
One line I saw alot was Recchi, Slava, and Perrin.
Another drill was 3 forwards lined up in front of the offensive side
goal and then the D men would take a shot. Either the forwards would
deflect the shot or work to get the rebound and shoot. The 3
forwards would then act as forwards for the goalie's side as if they
were shortanded while 3 other forwards would come onto the
ice...thus creating a PP/PK practice drill. It was pretty slick to
watch.
McCrimmon at one point skated up next to Enstrom (right infront of
where us fans sit) and I am not a lip reader but I swear he told
Toby "too passive". If that is indeed what he said I'll let you
decide for yourself what he was trying to say to Enstrom.
Other than Recchi line above all lines were pretty normal.
DW addressed the team at around 50 minutes into the practice. Only
thing I could really hear was "Boston is a good 1st period team".
I've not seen DW address the team on the ice in the middle of
practice. Wonder if he was talking about possible roster
changes...probably not but who really knows.
The end of practice was on one end some of the forwards (Kovy, Hoss,
Slava, ect...practicing shoot out shots).
Now, the question which I've been asked more than any other....how
fast, or not, is Recchi. I spent time today just watching him skate.
He is not fast or slow. He is in the middle. I don't think we'll see
him skating by any better than average defensemen and taking the
puck to the net. My opinion, albeit limited to watching 2 practices
with him, is that he's going to be used on the PP and maybe a few
shifts. DW probably wanted to help the PP and add some veteran
leadership to the team and that's why he went out and got Recchi...not
for his speed.
Observations
1. Enstrom's stick has little or no bend. That probably helps with
his passing...which we all know is pretty good.
2. Kari was very sharp in the goalie drills he was doing with Steve
Weeks. Very good movement in the crease. Very sharp positioning and
rebound control. Later in practice, however, he was letting in more
shots than normal. I could not tell if he was letting them in
because he was not trying too hard at that point or if they were
just good shots.
Then I stayed to watch Boston practice. I'll not outline their
drills but here are some observations of their practice.
1. Their drills entailed, for most of the practice, a line and D men
doing the drill with everyone else standing around watching the
drill. Once one line was done they would switch and then another
line would go. Our drills usually take up both ends of the ice and
run at the same time. Not Boston, they do it one at a time.
2. Their coaches almost seemed to recommend drills to the players
then the players would talk amongst themselves about how the drill
would be done. Then the drill would begin.
3. Marco Sturm got cut badly in the eye last game or game before. It
looked horrible. I don't think I saw him skating during the practice
but he was with the team on and off the bus.
4. Charra is HUGE. I think the top of Toby's head would just barely
make it over Charra's beltline.
5. I was not too impressed with the Bruin's practice. Not as much
skating as we see from our guys. No real drills for the goalies.
I will be starting a new website in the
coming weeks on which I will post my practice blog. The website is
thrashpractice.com. Look for it in the next week or so.
Not that big of a turnout today (fan wise). There were 20 fans in
attendance. However, the media was well represented by Craig
Custance, a TV crew, and Jeff Shultz from the AJC. They were
apparently there today because Mark Recchi practiced with the team
for the first time.
As usual, Moose was first on the ice followed by Kari. They warmed
up with a somewhat normal skating drill within the faceoff circles.
The drill was skating forward, backward, and side to side.
Then Thorburn, Little, Slater, and Recchi came onto the ice.
Thorburn, Slater, and Little took shots on the goalies.
Weeks had what sounded (from afar) like a pep talk with Kari. The
two words I could actually hear were "pisse_ off". I could be wrong,
but I think Steve was telling Kari to forget the game on Saturday
and come out to play like he was pisse_ off.
Slater talked to Recchi for awhile when Recchi came out onto the
ice. They appeared to be talking about Mark's new blue gloves (guess
he had to get new gloves because the black ones he wore in
Pittsburgh probably would be a bit of a color clash with our
uniforms...)
McCarthy is sporting a new Easton stick these days (much like the
ones that Boulton and Tobias use).
The team moved onto the alternate ice surface at the beginning of
the scheduled practice (10 am). Once there they started with a drill
where the puck was dumped behind our own zone net and brought out by
a forward and skated down the ice by a line of 3 forwards. Once in
the offensive zone the forward took a shot on net. After the first
shot was taken 2 D men would enter the offensive zone and would then
take the next shot with the 3 forwards posted in front of or around
the net.
Here are some of the line combos I saw at the beginning of practice
today:
Haydar / Little / Slater
Thorburn / Slava / Holik
Slater / Boulton / Dupuis
Larsen / Perrin / Recchi
Kovy / White / Hoss
Kovy was really hot and scoring on almost every shot at the
beginning of practice.
The next drill was a 2 on 2 with two forwards entering the offensive
zone and taking a shot. Then a shot would come in from the following
D men and the 2 forwards would attempt a deflection.
The last drill was a 5 on 5 drill starting in one zone and then when
the team of 5 lost possession the play would move to the other zone
with a new line of 3 forwards coming out to take the place of the 3
forwards which had started on the ice. The D men also rotated into
the play as well.
Here are some other line combinations I noticed at the end of the
practice:
Little / Haydar / Perrin
Recchi / Slater / Boulton
Kovy / White / Hoss
Thorburn / Slava / Holik
Slater / Boulton / Dupuis
Recchi / Little / Larsen
Larsen / Perrin / Recchi
There was no practice again on the power play.
At the end of the official practice Kovy was on the far end of the
ice apparently practicing his shootout moves against the Moose. He
probably took 10 shots or so on Moose.
Observations
1. Recchi takes very small strides when he is trying to skate fast.
His skating motion just kind of sticks out compared to the other
players.
2. Recchi is wearing #8
3. The practice drills appear to be designed by both McCrimmon and
Weeks. I say this because today McCrimmon would explain part of the
drill to the team and then Weeks would chime in with his thoughts (I
think he was explaining to either the D men or goalies what he
wanted to see happen during the drill...could be wrong).
4. Larsen appeared to get cut on the right side of his face during
the practice as the asst. training was holding a towel against that
part of his face/head for a long time during one of the stoppages in
practice. I did not see him come off the ice so I don't know for
sure what happened.
5. It was apparent to me that they tried Recchi with many
people/lines (other than the top line) to see if there were any
early signs of chemistry between him and the other players.
6. Recchi did not appear to "gel" with any line or players in
particular. I think they will have him on the 3rd and 4th lines and
see what happens. Since there was no PP practice today I could not
tell what PP line he will be on.
7. Recchi has reasonably good speed but is nowhere close to Dupuis
or Kovy. I would say he's slightly faster than Larsen.
|
THURSDAY, 12/13/2007
TUESDAY, 12/11/2007
MONDAY, 12/10/2007 |
