Disappointing outcome.
Having Leevi Merilainen get injured prior to the first rookie tournament game probably had a more consequential impact than some might have thought. This is a very young prospect group and a lot of these players (whether drafted or camp invites) were taking part in their first rookie tournament and needed to get some of the jitters out of the way. Even some of the more experienced prospects here such as Boucher, Daoust and Toure are playing their first game since recovering from injuries and having a long lay off.
Michael Simpson tried his best but even he had jitters he needed to work through. He wasn't able to provide the more calming presence that Merilainen likely would have been able to, which would have allowed for the early game defensive breakdowns to not end up in the back of the net. It didn't take long before the team was down a couple of goals and then they were chasing the game. This only added to the jitters of the inexperienced players and of Simpson.
The team really struggled to generate any momentum and the breakdowns kept costing them with goals against. I thought the players started to relax a bit after David Egorov was brought in to replace Simpson but at that point they had already lost the game.
For a rough game I still saw some positives on an individual level.
Lucas Ellinas looked very effective on the penalty kill and made some strong defensive reads. He also pinned the puck along the boards in the offensive zone and was able to keep in there while 4 devils prospects tried to get it away from him. He looked pretty good overall from what I recall.
Tyler Boucher has improved his skating, seems to be better positionally and comes across as more poised.
Carter Yakemchuk had some impressive moments on the power play.
Gabriel Eliasson has good mobility and was consistently very aggressive. He has more of an agitating and intimidating presence.
Djibril Toure is very mobile and has some flashes of offense to his game.
Camp invite, Ryder Boulton, actually has some good speed and has some of the makings of a super pest.
Camp invite, Landen Ward, had smart positional play, was defensively minded and made some smart passes and chip in plays with the puck.
Hopefully in tomorrows game we see the team work together collectively instead of individually, and that they got their nerves out of the way. Disappointing result but now they got two more games to demonstrate that they can learn from the mistakes made here. Let's see what they can do.
