Development Camp Notebook | Day 2

Day 2 of Avalanche development camp is complete. With just two picks in the 2022 draft, 193rd overall defenseman Chris Romaine and 225th overall goaltender Ivan Zhigalov, this camp is made up of an interesting blend of recent picks, rising ECHL hopefuls, and undrafted invitees.

Notably among them is defensive prospect and NCAA National Champion Sean Behrens. He’ll be completing his second year at the University of Denver next season and is joined by his Pios teammate Cameron Wright.

Wright was in a unique position after spending four years at Bowling Green State University. Due to the NCAA adding an additional year of eligibility in response to COVID-19 interrupted seasons, Wright joined DU as a senior for their 2021-22 season. 

This is something to keep in mind with some of the other college prospects working through the system including: Tyler Weiss, Matt Stienburg, and Colby Ambrosio. This crop of prospects has been billed as possibly longer term projects, so the added time gives them an additional opportunity to extend their development.

On one of Denver’s top lines alongside Carter Mazur and Massimo Rizzo, 23-year-old Wright finished with 34 points and 23 goals through 41 games including the final goal in the championship game. He appeared a versatile winger with nice mobility and speed. He found guys quickly and received passes with ease. He also wore a smile the entire day, laughing during drills and keeping the mood light.

As an undrafted free agent, he received an invitation to development camp and has unsurprisingly stood out among the young crop of prospects including some who will enter their first year of the USHL next year. It’s quite a mixed bag indeed.

Day two consisted of more passing and defensive drills to assess skill level. The first drill incorporated a circle-pass-pivot with coaches acting as traffic to make reception more challenging. Players sent the puck into the circle to a teammate, so it also tested their passing as well as the skater’s transitional skills.

Tarun Fizer captained the Victoria Royals this past season in the WHL and joined the Utah Grizzlies in their playoff run upon completion. With the Grizzlies, he played on a line with fellow camp attendee Ben Tardif. The two demonstrated chemistry in their passing sequences, finding one another easily. The compact pair was quite prolific in their playoff run, Tardif earned 30 points through 18 games and Fizer contributed 15 points.

Tardif, who has considerably more pro experience than other players at camp, did stand out as a more advanced player. He had a powerful wrist shot, smart stick checks, and completed passes. He received some one-on-one feedback on his transitions from forward to backward skating.

Another drill challenged players 2 on 2 to complete tape-to-tape passes around one unmoving defender and then another while entering the zone. The defenders were challenged to make defensive plays with limited mobility, focusing on stick placement and taking a knee to block the passing lane. The skaters were challenged to find their man in the thick of it. Sean Behrens and Ben Meyers shined in this drill both offensively and defensively.

There were a couple of other drills that focused on zone entry passes, one-timers, and collecting rebounds, but it was the gap-control drill that revealed some of Wyatt Aamodt’s upside. Aamodt is a new addition to the Colorado Eagles d-corps. The former Minnesota State captain came straight from college and joined the Eagles for the tail end of their season and playoff run. He appeared in just 12 games and began to find his footing as a stay-at-home defenseman type getting looks on the penalty kill. In earlier drills, he looked like he could stand to loosen up, keying in on his mobility. In the 1 on 1 gap drills, he defended against skaters without a stick and tended to the gap beautifully with more impressive multidirectional skating to tie guys up.

Looking at some of the defensive prospects more closely is a glimpse at the latest edition to the Colorado Avalanche organization: recent draft pick Chris Romaine. The 18-year-old just completed a season of high school prep hockey through the Milton Academy. He will play for the Omaha Lancers in the USHL next season and report to Providence College to play D1 after that. His path to professional hockey is ripe with opportunity with no certain timeline to get there. He’s most focused on learning as much as possible in the meantime.

He has a productive side to his game and scored 9 goals and 13 assists through 18 games last year.”I like to think of myself as a two-way puck-moving defenseman,” Romaine said. “I like to play defense, get the puck, move it up, jump up into a play, and contribute to the offense without sacrificing anything on defense. I like to do it all out there and just do everything I can to help the team.”

He’s learning a lot through just a couple of days of camp and described some of the specific feedback he’s received so far.”Today we were out there working on our defensive gaps, which has been a little bit of an adjustment,” he explained. “Coming from prep hockey, these guys are all bigger, older, and faster. So, working on my feet, on my gaps, [and] stuff like that is going to be really important for me. I’ve gotten a few pointers from the coach, so I’m just going to take that stuff and go back to Boston and work out throughout the summer, throughout the year.”

Even though he described the other players as bigger, at 6’0″ 194 lbs., he is not far off physically.

He mentioned plans to watch even more Avalanche hockey to become familiar with their systems, but he is no stranger to Cale Makar.

“As a kid, I was watching Drew Doughty and Erik Karlsson: the puck-moving defensemen. In these past few years, I’ve been a huge Cale Makar fan and that kind of works out that I’m here. He’s pretty special. These past few years, I’ve enjoyed watching him and the stuff he does out there is pretty crazy.”

He’s young and hopeful and above all very excited to be in Colorado. He described the opportunity as surreal.

“To be here with my family [when] my name was called, it was the best feeling in the world. It was awesome, and it’s obviously a great organization here. Coming to the Avs just makes it that much more special.”

It’s hard to draw meaningful conclusions from development camp with such a brief snapshot of the player’s most basic abilities, but there are still useful observations to be made that will get reported back to respective coaches for future improvements. It’s just Day 2, and tomorrow will bring about another skating session followed by a 4 on 4 Burgundy and White scrimmage at 6 P.M. at Family Sports Center. It is all open to the public.

On Friday, the prospects will go to Colorado Springs for team-building activities.

Notables:

• University of Denver’s coach David Carle was in attendance to help run drills. Colorado Eagles coach Greg Cronin was there as well.
• Goaltenders received special 1 on 1 training with Peter Budaj during the session – Paxton Geisel is an incoming freshman to the University of Denver.
• Matt Stienburg was in attendance but did not dress or participate.