Day two of the on-ice portion of Canucks development camp is in the books and we saw some prospects continue to impress with Wednesday’s scrimmage just around the corner.
Let’s just dive right in today and talk about what we liked from some of the prospects in attendance.
Jonathan Lekkerimäki found his shot on day two. The 18-year-old Swedish winger had a bit more jump in his stride Monday after shaking off the rust on Sunday. Lekkerimäki has a couple of different go-to shots and he used both of them early and often during Tuesday’s skate. The forwards were on the ice first and Lekkerimäki shined in the morning skate. He looked to have a bit more pace in his game and used both his loaded shot and quick shot to beat goalies during drills.
A shot from Jonathan Lekkerimäki. pic.twitter.com/fuPhFqILOk
— Faber (@ChrisFaber39) July 3, 2023
Lekkerimäki’s two go-to shots are when he loads up weight onto his stick and releases a harder wrist shot that is very difficult for goalies to react to. This shot is the one he often uses on the power play and he typically shoots for top corners when he has the added power. In a lot of Monday’s drills, Lekkerimäki was doing his quick little flick of wrist shot — this is the shot he usually uses to beat goaltenders over the pads and under the glove or blocker.
We saw Lekkerimäki and Tom Willander matchup a lot during today’s drills and the two first-round picks pushed each other during many of the drills. Willander used his strong pace to win a lot of those battles and on top of being quicker, he showed that he had a strength advantage on Lekkerimäki during many of the times they matched up.
The Swedish first rounders Jonathan Lekkerimäki and Tom Willander battling in a drill. pic.twitter.com/4LV8tSaGnv
— Faber (@ChrisFaber39) July 3, 2023
One of the standouts from day one rode his momentum into day two as Dmitri Zlodeyev once again looked like a top forward on the ice. Zlodeyev and Lucas Forsell spent a lot of time together during drills and even had a good laugh together after their skate was done. The two players are extremely aggressive during drills and you can tell that they do not take any shifts off — even if it’s just at a summer development camp. I personally love to see players like Zlodeyev and Forsell bring the competitive level up in this type of camp scenario.
Dmitry “the Villain” Zlodeyev continues to find twine this week.
He’s consistently beating set-goaltenders during both day one and two. pic.twitter.com/QJjMp2ML0F
— Faber (@ChrisFaber39) July 3, 2023
Zlodeyev has been locked in with his shot and is often beating goalies through the one and two holes. We’ve liked a lot of what we’ve seen from Forsell and Zlodeyev and the two should definitely play together during the scrimmage. That would make for a fun line that will bring a ton of energy to every shift.
Quick little snipe from Lucas Forsell. pic.twitter.com/pyt6pUMOYQ
— Faber (@ChrisFaber39) July 3, 2023
In general, it felt like the players’ shots were more accurate on day two. The goalies all were on-ice a couple of days prior to the players joining them and you could tell there was some rust on the players’ shots during day one’s skate. On day two, players like Forsell, Zlodeyev, Lekkerimäki, Max Sasson, Jackson Dorrington, Cole McWard, Christian Fitzgerald, and Ty Mueller all consistently found the back of the net on their shots. We will touch on each of them later in the quick hit recap of the day.
Let’s spend a bit of time here talking about Jackson Dorrington. For those who aren’t familiar with the name, Dorrington was selected in the sixth round of the 2022 draft and played his first NCAA season last year alongside Aidan McDonough at Northeastern. Dorrington is a 6’2″, left-shot defenceman but in our viewings of him last season, we saw him spend a lot of time on the right-side of his defence pairing.
Dorrington is one of the three players at this camp who have been invited to the World Junior Summer Showcase — Elias Pettersson and Lekkerimäki are the other two. Dorrington is an American and played his junior hockey in the USHL. He finished his freshman year at Northeastern with 35 games played and added six assists. He’s a big, tough defenceman who’s best trait is his physicality. There were some really good board battles on Monday that featured Dorrington, including one with Willander that saw both of the teenagers giving 100% on their cross-checks in the corner.
Getting a chance to play with team USA at the summer showcase will be a great opportunity for Dorrington to get more eyes on him and his play style. He’s a long-term project for the Canucks’ pipeline but you have to like his profile of being a big defenceman who loves to protect his crease and hates when the opposition gets near his goalie.
Faber has been liking (LD) Jackson Dorrington early on after being drafted in the 6th round of the 2022 draft.
Producer @allard_alex nailed a double sleeper cam on @QuadreIli as well.
Watch the full YouTube video here: https://t.co/QzquAU3hiH pic.twitter.com/vNoelpY0MI
— Canucks Conversation Podcast (@CanucksConvo) October 17, 2022
Dorrington played on Northeastern’s penalty kill as a freshman and with many of the Huskies’ defencemen graduating or moving on to pro hockey, he should get even more minutes and be relied upon as more of a leader in the defence corps.
We will be seeing his name a lot more in our Blackfish reports this coming season.
None of the goalies really caught our eye on day two. The skaters kind of won the day if you want to call it that but there were some other tidbits that I took notes on and let’s bang them out quickly here and call it a day!
Hugo Gabrielson with the PING and in. pic.twitter.com/zfQ4NSDr3c
— Faber (@ChrisFaber39) July 3, 2023
Ty Mueller has been beating goalies a lot throughout the first two days of camp. He buries one here in the small rink 3on3. pic.twitter.com/OMvzpbvAzy
— Faber (@ChrisFaber39) July 3, 2023
Tuesday’s skate should see the competition level rise even higher and with Wednesday’s scrimmage just down the hall, we expect to see the prospects kick it into high gear so that they can show off their skills.
One final note. It was a full house at the rink today. The viewing area was full of fans and almost all of the management staff was in attendance. Today, we saw head coach Rick Tocchet and owner Francesco Aquilini in attendance as well.
We will be back tomorrow to recap what we see from day three of camp. Be sure to check back around 4:00 pm tomorrow to get day three’s recap article here at CanucksArmy.
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