Maple Leafs announce prospect camp invitees (Who are these guys?)
By Cam Charron
11 years ago
The Toronto Maple Leafs announced Thursday that the team’s prospect camp, held from July 2-to-5, will feature 42 players. The group will consist of four goaltenders, 25 forwards and 13 defencemen. All six of the Maple Leafs’ 2012 draft choices will be in attendance.The camp will include on-ice practice sessions at MasterCard Centre for Hockey Excellence and seminars on conditioning, media awareness, personal development and nutrition. The camp will open with on-ice workouts on Monday at 10:00 a.m. The week will be highlighted with three intra-squad games which will take place from Tuesday-to-Thursday. The tentative on-ice schedule for the camp is as follows:
So that’s that. Morgan Rielly, Matt Finn, Dominic Toninato and all your favourite Toronto draftees from 2012 will be in attendance. Still, there are also a couple of more notable names on the roster.
Most importantly, probably, is Matt Rupert, who played on the opposite wing of twin brother Ryan Rupert this season with the London Knights. The pair were part of a five-man shutdown unit employed by Mark Hunter to oppose other team’s elite scorers, and it got the Knights the OHL Championship as well as to within one goal of the Memorial Cup.
Matt and Ryan Rupert acknowledge that they do have one thing in common with Vancouver Canucks stars Henrik and Daniel Sedin.Both sets of siblings are twins.But the similarity stops there, says Ryan Rupert.”It’s not the same style at all,” he said. ”We’re agitators.”We like to get under people’s skin. They’re more finesse players. They use their bodies because they’re bigger and they put up more points, but we play a more defensive style.”
Meanwhile, Adam Hughesman may get a second look because Leaf fans will note he had 116 points in Tri-City of the WHL last season. He was second in the league to only linemate Brendan Shinnimin, who is going to work out with Phoenix.
116 points may get people excited, but keep in mind that he was an overage player, a 20-year old in junior hockey lingo, who played alongside another overage player in Shinnimin and Patrick Holland, a Habs prospect who was a 19-year old by 7 days. A week older and he’d be 20 as well.
That line scored a tonne of goals and helped the Americans make the WHL Western Conference Finals, but I don’t expect NHLers out of them. Still, Hughesman is a good potential fit in a minor-league system.
Two other former Leafs picks, Greg McKegg and Leo Komarov, are also going to be there. McKegg was traded to the Knight’s early in the season but was injured down the stretch. Andrey Osadchenko had an interview with him for The Leafs Nation that can be found here. He actually asked a question relating to the joke surrounding McKegg’s name: “…with a leg for an arm, and an arm for a leg.”
As for Komarov, Andrey wasn’t kidding when he pointed out that the Toronto media know little about this guy:
D-man Leo Komarov is coming to Leafs’ prospect camp. The 2006 pick – KHL vetis likely to start the year with Leafs.— Lance Hornby (@sunhornby) June 28, 2012
Andrey’s our Russian correspondant, in that he actually watches and talks to people in the KHL. I’m no KHL expert, but Andrey has a pretty good look at Komarov here. He looks at Komarov’s style of play, level of effectiveness, and what Leafs fans can expect if Leo doesn’t make the big club.
The camp will run July 2 through July 5.
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