Pretty late, but I thought I'd give a quick rundown of a few key guys from thursdays prospect scrimmages.
They had them broken into 2 groups, the first was mostly recent draftees and tryouts, the second was the more experienced group.
Dauphin- Invisible. Because he wasn't there. Apparently wasn't there tuesday either. Not sure what the deal was.
Perlini- Stuck out the most to me out of everyone, but it's tough to evaluate too much since the group he was in was significantly less competitive than the second group. Seemed solid defensively, lots of effort overall. His speed and size was very evident. Heads always up, smart with the puck. I love his shot, he's able to get wristers off in some awkward spots. He scored a crazy goal from the top of the faceoff circle, skating away from the goal towards the boards and shooting across his body, got it off very quickly with a lot of speed and sniped it high glove.
Gaudet- Looked the most ready out of anyone, he played in the second group. Planted Domi pretty hard on his butt right in front of the net. Very smart and gritty, good skater and setup man. Missed on a few huge opportunities right in front of the net but scored a real nice shootout goal. Looked very big and strong. Seemed legit on faceoffs. Maybe could use a little time in the A to work on his finishing, but otherwise was very impressive against the top guys in the group, playing against Domi and Samuelsson.
Domi- Very disappointing. Didn't look to be trying much at all on D, lots of coasting and long swipes at the puck from out of position. Not much backchecking. Really only looked like he was putting in any effort defensively on a couple of the later shifts. Looked good offensively, but not what I've come to expect from him, especially against that level of competition. It's possible he was hurt, I heard he went off the ice awkwardly at the wednesday scrimmage. A hurt player can look very indifferent at times which would hopefully explain the lackluster effort. If that's the case he did seem to be less hurt with the puck though. Could be it was just easier to move with the puck since he could initiate and not react like on D though. Not sure what to think, hopefully just an anomaly or a minor injury since the size (not height, definitely size though) and skill is very much there.
Samuelsson- Not really as high on him as some people seem to be. He looked good, but I think he still needs time. Skating isn't really bad, but he could use some work on his quickness. Good puckhandler but not outstanding, good shot but again nothing amazing. He's big and solid all around though. I think this kind of thing isn't the best showcase for him.
Larazza- I liked his game. A ton of intensity, he was always in the right place and was great in puck battles. Big guy, not a ton of skill but hopefully he can make it as a 4th liner at some point. Pretty good skater too, good top end speed.
Those were the ones that stuck out the most to me, all the defensemen looked about the same honestly, KEL made a couple nice reads defensively and broke up a few plays but that was about it. No one really jumped out much positively or negatively. Looked like a lot of JAGs but with the 4v4 and 3v3 without much structure, and with so many players it's hard to get too much out of it.