Ahh... the rink. I spent the morning at the Duluth IceForum and had a chance to watch some of the guys scrimmage amongst themselves.
By the time I got out there there were nine skaters and two goalies. It was a mix of Thrashers and minor league guys as Jon Awe and two unnamed players joined in with guys that will be at our training camp in a few weeks.
The group split into three teams of three skaters and scrimmaged across the ice in one of the defensive zones. Johan Hedberg and an unnamed goalie stayed in place in nets as the three teams took turns taking a breather and rotated through.
Here were the teams:
- Niclas Havelid, Tobias Enstrom and Boris Valabik in navy.
- Brett Sterling, Jon Awe and another unnamed player in white.
- Ken Klee, Eric Boulton and Bryan Little in light blue.
It was a light-hearted affair but the guys were still competitive. At one point Brett Sterling caught Boris off guard and gave him a nice shot from behind, sending him sprawling. A few minutes later in the next game the light blue team won the faceoff and dumped the puck in. Sterling, who was lined up with Boulton for the draw, turned to chase the puck and before he could take two strides Eric Boulton's stick was between his legs. Down went Sterling. It didn't give Boulton much of an advantage though because he was laughing too hard to jump in on the odd-man rush.
The all-defensive team looked good, but you could tell that Valabik isn't used to being in a scoring role. Tobias Enstrom hit him with a few great passes and he was caught off guard by some of them. Niclas Havelid on the other hand had plenty of jump and was picking corners.
Sterling was showing off his quick hands in front of the net, scrounging for rebounds and getting shots off from in close.
Klee and Boulton were taking Little under their wings, but he didn't need much help. He was probably the most impressive player of the bunch, firing off passes, deking the opposition out of their skates and picking corners every chance he got. He scored a beautiful goal on Hedberg, as did Enstrom who beat Moose clean stick side from about 15 feet out. At one point Little was knocked to his knees but he still kept control of the puck and put it right on the tape of Klee's stick.
It was a fun series of scrimmages, and nothing should really be read into it, but it was great to see the guys back out on the ice for the first time in months and to see the competitive juices flowing. It's already clear that Ken Klee is a natural leader and I think his presence is going to be felt in the locker room. While there are a decent number of veterans on the roster not many of them are particularly outspoken. Havelid and Zhitnik are both fairly quiet, as is Slava Kozlov. My early impression of Klee, who I spoke to for about 10 minutes, is that he has the kind of strong personality that can fill the void left by the departures of Scott Mellanby, Greg de vries and Andy Sutton.
Keep an eye on the site for a Q&A with Klee. Hopefully we'll get it up before the long weekend.
