A truncated afternoon session today filled with line rushes and a brief 4-on-4 scrimmage. The activity was more interesting and more instructive, but at 45 minutes or so, not enough to really watch everyone in question. Some items of interest:

– John Armstrong appeared in the first half of practice wearing a white jersey (the only one on the ice). He left when the drills got more physical. At the start of the week, I predicted to Walk Invisible that Armstrong would be injured before the camp was done. Looks like I was right. Other injured guys right now include John Negrin and Ryley Grantham.

– Mikael Backlund was schooling the kids today. He made several highlight reel dangles around opponents. There’s little question he’s at the top of the class here.

– Nyren’s fundamental skills are questionable, but he made two excellent defensive reads. I’ve come around a bit on the guy since watching him struggle through the power skating stuff.

– The only time I really noticed Nemisz was on a defensive play. He was the lone man back during a rush in the scrimmage and managed to expertly guide the attacker to the outside without much problem.

– Tim Erixon has good tools aside from his shot. No real velocity or power behind it.

– Bryan Cameron has left me really underwhelmed throughout camp thus far. His skating isn’t there and he hasn’t been executing around the net the way one would expect of a guy with so many junior goals under his belt. 

– Again, I didn’t really notice any of the new guys or Ryan Howse.