Training camp fallers from the Athletic guys…

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Falling

Matthew Highmore

Training camp performances always need to be graded on a curve.
Veterans with secure jobs are usually going through the motions at half speed; it’s really only those with an incentive to perform well that are giving it their all.
That’s why the players who are trying to earn spots often end up being among the top performers at camp despite not being impact NHLers.
The point here is that if you’re a fringe player who wants to make the team, it’s expected that you stand out
To a certain extent. That’s why Highmore’s quiet performance through camp and preseason is concerning. Highmore should be standing out with his speed, battle level and physicality — the way Lockwood has — but he’s instead been mostly invisible.
Highmore didn’t leave much of a mark in either camp scrimmage and was quiet on Sunday against Seattle as well — bad timing considering his direct competitor, Di Giuseppe, has been excellent.
One of the traits that we thought might work in Highmore’s favour was his penalty-killing utility but that edge may be fading too with the PK reps Di Giuseppe got on Sunday.
To his credit, Highmore was more effective in Monday’s game. There’s still a decent chance for him to crack the 23-man roster because of the players currently out. That said, there’s no question that the inside track he appeared to have for the everyday fourth-line left wing role is slipping away.

Zack MacEwen

Green tried to hit the reset button for MacEwen after a disappointing campaign last season.
MacEwen started camp with a big opportunity next to Horvat and Tanner Pearson, a conducive environment for him to make an impact, regain his confidence and get back on track in his bid to become an everyday lineup fixture with the club.
To this point, however, the PEI native hasn’t been able to make any noise. In fact, after a quiet camp, he didn’t even get a preseason crack in that spot next to Horvat — that opportunity went to Chiasson instead.
You can tell that MacEwen’s working hard on all of his shifts, but he just doesn’t seem quick enough to disrupt plays and cause havoc.
In the end, it leaves him without an identity or role as a bottom-six piece. He’s not fast enough to retrieve pucks and be effective on the forecheck. He’s not skilled enough to produce offensively with consistency. There’s no defensive value, because he doesn’t kill penalties and has sloppy two-way details to his game with respect to wall work and passing, with both issues being particularly pronounced on the breakout.
Without these qualities, MacEwen only has size, which isn’t really useful if he can’t find a way to leverage it.
There’s still time for MacEwen to turn it around and leave a mark but he’s in the same boat as Highmore where his game to this point has been invisible.

Olli Juolevi

Juolevi struggled mightily at training camp.
The No. 5 pick at the 2016 draft fared particularly poorly in the 40s bag skate, lying prone in the corner of the ice after both the third and fourth run through.
Green would later acknowledge that Juolevi’s bag skate performance “didn’t do him any favours.” It was a frank assessment, and an obvious one based on the fact that he was the only player demoted down the lineup at camp.
Juolevi’s overall training camp performance was similarly iffy. The talented defender has prototypical size and remains an intelligent two-way piece. But Juolevi’s lack of foot speed and stamina has been exposed throughout the club’s four-day camp in Abbotsford.
Juolevi was walked with some regularity by his teammates in the scrimmage, most notably Horvat, and while he won a few battles here and there, he wasn’t consistently more reliable than either Rathbone or Hunt.
The club put Juolevi into both of their opening preseason games, and he fared OK. He was far better on Monday than on Sunday, anyway.
The problem for Juolevi is that winning an opening night job requires more than just finding his level. It also requires the player in question to beat out their competition outright.
Unfortunately for Juolevi, both Rathbone and Hunt have been extraordinary performers in the first week of training camp. Meanwhile, Juolevi just hasn’t been able to keep pace, leaving him on the outside looking in among the candidates for Vancouver’s vacant third-pair left defence slot.

Rising

Jack Rathbone

After a solid, albeit unspectacular training camp, Rathbone has come alive in the preseason. In the first game, he stole the limelight with a dynamic offensive performance that saw him notch a goal and an assist and register four shots. He looked comfortable manning the power play and was creative all game in the offensive end.
All of that was good to see but the Canucks already know what Rathbone can do offensively. They know he’s a special talent with his skating and shot. Like it is with any young offensive defenceman, it’s not the offensive flair but rather the defensive reliability that will dictate how much of an NHL opportunity he’ll earn.
Rathbone needs to win trust with his defensive play more than he needs to score a bunch of points at this juncture.
Monday’s performance against the Flames certainly helped that cause. Rathbone wasn’t as flashy or dangerous offensively as he was Sunday but make no mistake, it proved his NHL readiness in a far more meaningful way. The 22-year-old was scrappy without the puck, strong on his feet and handled defensive zone duress like a well-seasoned pro.
The tone for that was set from the beginning on one of his first shifts. He was under immense pressure against a physical, big-bodied Flames line and while Brett Ritchie was giving him problems initially, Rathbone recovered very well with his stick to deny a pass and started a controlled breakout. On another shift, he was able to strip Dillon Dube of the puck behind the net.
Rathbone held his ground in 50/50 puck battles, ensuring he never lost one cleanly. The competitiveness was evident all night, including a highlight in the second period when he dumped the 6-foot-4, 220-pound Ritchie to the ice with an assertive check.
Rathbone is unlikely to ever be someone who can consistently break up plays on the cycle but he needs to prove he can at least excel in contain mode. What he showed Monday was some of his best work yet along those lines. A shift like the one below, for example, exudes Troy Stecher vibes with the “I’m undersized, but I’m going to work my tail off to win the puck” attitude. That’s the sort of fire-in-his-belly stretch that will catch the attention of Vancouver’s coaches:
With the puck, Rathbone’s work on the breakout was mint. He warded off pressure well and consistently hit the tape with passes. There were no glaring puck management mistakes and he never put himself out of position with a poor pinch. Combine the scrappy defence with slick puck-moving and it’s hard to look at Rathbone’s game without concluding that he’s one of the club’s six best defenders.
Brad Hunt’s been solid through camp so it’s not as if Rathbone has locked up the third pair job yet, but he’s at least holding up his end of the bargain and leaving little doubt that he’s NHL-ready.

Rising

Jonah Gadjovich

Despite a breakout offensive campaign in the watered down AHL last season, Gadjovich was given short shrift at the NHL level.
Last season, Gadjovich appeared in just one contest, playing a small handful of shifts, and under five minutes in total, before racking up a whopping 17 penalty minutes by leaping to a teammate’s defence after a questionable hit.
No one within the Canucks organization expected Gadjovich to be such a significant contender for an opening night spot in Vancouver’s lineup, and he probably remains a long shot. With strong performances in both weekend scrimmages and a gorgeous, patient rush assist in Monday night’s preseason contest, however, Gadjovich has done enough to begin to flip that narrative.
The bruising 2017 second-round pick is looking leaner and quicker. Speaking with the media after Vancouver’s game on Monday night, Gadjovich suggested that his increased foot speed — honed during the summer months when he spent time working through power skating sessions with Dawn Braid in Ontario — has helped to unlock his physical game.
That aspect of Gadjovich’s improvement showed on Monday night in Abbotsford, as the still only 22-year-old left winger was frequently an effective forechecking presence and was constantly up in the play, easily keeping up with his faster linemates Wouters and Lockwood.
Gadjovich is still running in the outside lane in the race to carve out a spot in Vancouver’s opening night lineup. He’s on the right path, however, and will surely get an extended look with more offensively inclined linemates if he can continue to battle and produce the way he has so far through a pair of scrimmages and a preseason contest.
To really get into that conversation, however, Gadjovich will need to first push his way a bit higher up the Canucks’ lineup for one of the team’s five remaining preseason games. On Monday, for example, Gadjovich was the fourth-line left winger and didn’t factor into either power play unit.
You’ll know that Gadjovich has really broken into a fourth-line roster battle when he starts to get bumped a bit further up the lineup. Until Gadjovich begins to log some special teams ice time or get an extended top-six look, he remains more likely to begin the season with Vancouver’s AHL affiliate in Abbotsford.
For now, he’s put himself at the fringes of that roster battle, a remarkable accomplishment on its own.

Rising

Phil Di Giuseppe

Di Giuseppe has been a standout performer since the first day of training camp, when he absolutely roasted his group in the 40s bag skate.
Since then, Di Giuseppe has solidified his spot at the head of the pack competing for an opening night spot on the Canucks’ fourth line. The veteran forward has looked fast and assertive, his details have been consistent in every phase of the game and he’s won battles at will in both scrimmage and game environments.
His solid work on the penalty kill on Sunday in Spokane should particularly resonate for Canucks coaches and management. Vancouver is a relatively young team up front and lacks ideal penalty-killing options among its top-nine forward group aside from Richardinson. If Di Giuseppe is able to be a penalty-killing mainstay, it would give him a significant leg up over some of the club’s other depth forward contenders like Matthew Highmore, Alex Chiasson and Nic Petan.
To add to Di Giuseppe’s appeal, he remains probably the most offensively talented of the players in the fourth-line wing mix. In Saturday’s scrimmage that closed training camp, Di Giuseppe hinted at his surprising offensive pop with a deft one-touch pass off a high-low pass from Rathbone that found Chiasson neatly for a tap-in. It was an instructive moment, an offensive play that screamed “NHL calibre.”
There’s still road to run here, but at this point, that fourth-line left wing spot feels like it’s Di Giuseppe’s to lose.

Rising

Will Lockwood

Lockwood has been turning heads since the first day of training camp. It doesn’t matter if it’s a drill, scrimmage or preseason game, he just always catches your eye one way or another. After a strong camp, he’s carried that same momentum into the preseason.
Lockwood’s been energetic, disruptive and physical. He’s consistently been a pain in the neck of his opponents, especially against Calgary where his line with Chase Wouters and Jonah Gadjovich caused fits all night. That trio worked very well to close time and space, intercept breakouts and create a bit of havoc around the net and off the cycle. Most of their shifts were spent in the offensive zone and a lot of it was the byproduct of Lockwood’s nonstop motor.
It’s small plays like the one in the second period where he sealed the wall to intercept a rim attempt, cleanly corralled the puck and made a short pass to establish a cycle shift that should help his cause. That line created some offence down low, including one sequence where Lockwood made a nice high to low pass to spring Gadjovich for a chance.
Now the caveat in all of this is that Lockwood is a little bit rough around the edges with his details. He doesn’t always seem comfortable helping his defenders on the breakout and had a very dangerous turnover along those lines on Sunday against Seattle. It was the type of error that Canucks coach Travis Green typically has very little patience for.
Similar to Rathbone, Lockwood will have to earn the coaching staff’s trust defensively and that’s probably still a work in progress. Otherwise, the 2016 third-round pick has done everything he can to stand out and make some kind of positive impact on nearly every shift.
We’ll see if it’s enough to ultimately make the team but you’d think he’s probably shown enough to leapfrog someone like Zack MacEwen on the right wing depth chart.

Rising

Danila Klimovich

Klimovich has been probably the biggest surprise at Canucks training camp.
Usually, you can tell which players in a training camp environment are bona fide NHL-level players, AHL-level players and junior-level players with relative ease. It’s evident in their size, stamina and skill level.
Impressively, particularly as Klimovich spent his 2020-21 campaign in the Belarusian second league, Klimovich has so far looked like a fringe NHL-level player. His performance has been nothing short of sensational, which has to be an auspicious indicator for the Canucks.
Klimovich’s speed and overall athleticism have been two standout qualities where it’s tough to discern much difference between him and some of the other professional-level skaters at Canucks camp. His arsenal of dekes and overall puck control are already high end. And he’s a big body, with a frame that looks like it could hold up in professional hockey in his draft-plus-one campaign.
With those mix of NHL-ready, or near NHL-ready, skills, it would be an understatement to say Klimovich has been a tantalizing presence at his first Canucks camp.
There are still a few areas of Klimovich’s game that are raw. His work along the wall will need to be stronger if he’s going to be an everyday NHL regular, he can appear a bit reactive as his overall on-ice awareness appears unfocused on occasion and his shot — while powerful — isn’t accurate enough to be a significant weapon at the NHL level at this juncture.
Nonetheless, Klimovich has already surpassed all reasonable expectations for his first Canucks training camp. He got a taste on the first power play unit Monday, looked effective at the net front and has shown enough that he’s going to be a hard player to reassign to major junior.
In fact, on merit, Klimovich has already demonstrated that he’s worth taking a look at in AHL action.

Howdy,

New blog is up, with more thoughts from me on Monday's game and the jigsaw puzzle that Jim Benning is dealing with as he tries to sort out the last details of his roster.

https://www.hockeybuzz.co...in-over-Flames/194/113641

Rising

Jack Rathbone

After a solid, albeit unspectacular training camp, Rathbone has come alive in the preseason. In the first game, he stole the limelight with a dynamic offensive performance that saw him notch a goal and an assist and register four shots. He looked comfortable manning the power play and was creative all game in the offensive end.
All of that was good to see but the Canucks already know what Rathbone can do offensively. They know he’s a special talent with his skating and shot. Like it is with any young offensive defenceman, it’s not the offensive flair but rather the defensive reliability that will dictate how much of an NHL opportunity he’ll earn.
Rathbone needs to win trust with his defensive play more than he needs to score a bunch of points at this juncture.
Monday’s performance against the Flames certainly helped that cause. Rathbone wasn’t as flashy or dangerous offensively as he was Sunday but make no mistake, it proved his NHL readiness in a far more meaningful way. The 22-year-old was scrappy without the puck, strong on his feet and handled defensive zone duress like a well-seasoned pro.
The tone for that was set from the beginning on one of his first shifts. He was under immense pressure against a physical, big-bodied Flames line and while Brett Ritchie was giving him problems initially, Rathbone recovered very well with his stick to deny a pass and started a controlled breakout. On another shift, he was able to strip Dillon Dube of the puck behind the net.
Rathbone held his ground in 50/50 puck battles, ensuring he never lost one cleanly. The competitiveness was evident all night, including a highlight in the second period when he dumped the 6-foot-4, 220-pound Ritchie to the ice with an assertive check.
Rathbone is unlikely to ever be someone who can consistently break up plays on the cycle but he needs to prove he can at least excel in contain mode. What he showed Monday was some of his best work yet along those lines. A shift like the one below, for example, exudes Troy Stecher vibes with the “I’m undersized, but I’m going to work my tail off to win the puck” attitude. That’s the sort of fire-in-his-belly stretch that will catch the attention of Vancouver’s coaches:
With the puck, Rathbone’s work on the breakout was mint. He warded off pressure well and consistently hit the tape with passes. There were no glaring puck management mistakes and he never put himself out of position with a poor pinch. Combine the scrappy defence with slick puck-moving and it’s hard to look at Rathbone’s game without concluding that he’s one of the club’s six best defenders.
Brad Hunt’s been solid through camp so it’s not as if Rathbone has locked up the third pair job yet, but he’s at least holding up his end of the bargain and leaving little doubt that he’s NHL-ready.
- LeftCoaster

One of those picks you say Benning is unsuccessful with outside of the first round. They are starting to show the last couple of years though. Demko(home run), Hogz(home run), Rathbone is definitely trending to a 5th round home run. Klimo has a pretty good shot to be a NHLer as well, Lockwood, Mike D looking more like a serviceable goalie by the day. Some other hopefuls in the pipeline...

Patience Lefty.

He's probably less likely to get Covid than the vaccinated then.
- boonerbuck

yep