Training Camp Wrap: Day 1
Pat Steinberg
September 17 2011 05:07PM
Day one of training camp is in the books for the Calgary Flames, with all three groups having gone through their on ice sessions for the day. The big news surrounded Jarome Iginla who left his Group B session early with back spasms and didn't return. The feeling is things aren't very serious, so we'll keep an eye on that. Other than that, the only thing that intrigued me surrounded who was playing with who.
The story on Iginla saw him go talk to a trainer, leave the ice, and then have his red jersey given to someone else on the ice shortly thereafter. He spoke after, and said that he didn't want to aggravate anything further by staying in. If he were to miss practice tomorrow, I wouldn't be very worried at the same time.
Group A saw a mostly young group of players on the ice with a few veterans sprinkled in. Cory Sarich was one of those vets, however was wearing a yellow no contact jersey. Sarich continues to recover from a groin injury, and we'll see if he's able to get into preseason games. Most of the groups saw only five defencemen take part, however we were able to get pairings from Group A. Leland Irving and invitee Adam Avramenko were the goalies.
Rene Bourque-David Moss-Carter Bancks
Tim Jackman-Matt Stajan-Turner Elson
Niklas Hagman-Lance Bouma-Patrick Holland
Stefan Meyer-Mitch Wahl-Bryan Cameron/Quintin Laing
Anton Babchuk-Chris Breen
T.J. Brodie-Cory Sarich
Joe Pisula-James Martin
Group B was the group with Iginla, and I was able to pick up the lines prior to Jarome leaving. Seeing Sven Baertschi on the top line gives no indication as to the future plans for him with the big team, but it certainly shows you how highly they think of their first round pick. Miikka Kiprusoff and Joni Ortio were the two goaltenders in the group.
Sven Baertschi-Mikael Backlund-Jarome Iginla
Alex Tanguay-Paul Byron-Tom Kostopoulos
Guilluame Desbiens-Roman Horak-Ryan Howse
Riley Grantham-John Armstrong-C.J. Severyn/Justin Dowling
Henrik Karlsson was the only goaltender for the final group of the day. Max Reinhart was not on the ice for the third session for an undisclosed reason, meaning lines were as follows:
Curtis Glencross-Dustin Sylvester-Lee Stempniak
Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond-Ben Walter-Jon Rheault
Logan MacMillan-Gaelan Patterson-Blake Gal
Michael Ferland-Olli Jokinen-Greg Nemisz
The final two players to skate were Raitis Ivanans and Brett Carson, who were skating with injuries. They'll skate in three sessions on
How did Clay Wilson look?
I watched the 3rd set today, looked pretty good. This was the first time watching a practice/training camp, so this is probably normal but I loved watching Karlsson out there.
They were a light skate around the rink, then probably a 10 second hard skate every time Sutter blew a whistle. Not that goalies need to be the best skaters, but there wasnt much difference in speed for Karlsson. He just bent over a bit more and swung his arms to make it appear he was going quicker. When it came to the drills, he did everything he could to make sure the puck didnt enter his net. He made some pretty nice glove saves too. Also he is very vocal when scored on. During a 3-1 drill, he would allow a goal off a rebound where he had no chance and really no one in the NHL would be able to get. Lets just say he didnt keep his words PG for the kids in the crowd.
When Karlsson looked away, Jokinen shot a puck into the net from the blue line, I was hoping for a reaction from Karlsson, but I dont think he noticed.
Speaking of Jokinen, good news, I didnt see him hit any posts today.
Tough to tell on the first day of camp. I talked to him afterwards, he seemed happy with how it went. Thing you could tell right away: good skater.
Some Video from group c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4mHSv16kDM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQVUyaYIDro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGgyGZBrAyc
The buzz is back!
You got to love it!
BTW
Your picture of the bus has the steering wheel on wrong side; Must be from Edmonton!
"back spasms" isn't something I like to hear when it comes to players. That stuff never seems to go away completely. It's the first time I've heard Jarome talk about back trouble too.
Speak of the Devil, Kerr tweeted that Iginla isn't on the ice.
@Pat Steinberg
Just an odd case with him. I mean, he got picked up to play at the Worlds out of nowhere.
This might be the beginning of the end for Jarome Iginla. I say, if he plays enough games, puts up decent numbers, and we're either on the playoff bubble or out come trade deadline, we offload him for as rich a trade as we can get.