Bruins Development Camp Highlights: Letourneau, Zellers & Top Prospects | Ep. 150

0:00 Speaker 1: Can you start a podcast with me?

0:02 Speaker 2: Please?

0:03 Speaker 1: I need something to do.

0:13 Speaker 3: All Jack, send it out. A triple block of this says today, here's a chance popor right down the goalie scars, oh my one a move by the rookie too on one plaster not moving in set it to its time on the oil dances in podcast at home right away corner, paster Chester.

0:40 Speaker 4: What is that for?

0:41 Speaker 5: Most? Welcome in everyone to another episode of Ruins Tape to tape and in fact, welcome into our fourth season premiere. I'm your host today, Caroline with a K, and I'm joined with my fantastic co host Maria from Watertown. Hey, Maria, how's it going.

1:08 Speaker 1: It's gone great.

1:09 Speaker 2: I can't believe we're four years into this gig with each other. It's thrawn by in a good way.

1:15 Speaker 1: It has.

1:16 Speaker 5: It's been an interesting four years, or at least three full seasons. To kick off this season, we are bringing in our favorite doctor of Dev's, our prospects expert Mary Beth, to talk about dev Camp.

1:32 Speaker 1: So welcome in, Mary Beth.

1:34 Speaker 4: Hey, thanks so much for having me and congrats on four years. Happy to have been part of it for most of it. I appreciate you guys, having me back as you know this to me is one of the most wonderful times of the year.

1:45 Speaker 5: It fills us all with hope and the promise of what could be in the future for the Boston Bruins. There's a saying in gardening, if you'll indulge me, that there's no perfect garden like next year garden. And I feel like there's no perfect team like next year's future team, and so I often feel that way when I'm watching some of these young kids and hearing about them throughout the season from you.

2:11 Speaker 1: You do such a great job of keeping track of all of these.

2:14 Speaker 5: Young players, and we're excited to hear about some that have been in the system for a little while. Now you're gonna tell us a little bit about Dean laterno Will Zellers, Loki Johansen, Christian Kostadinsky, and then, of course our two newer players on our prospects roster goaltenders Yuri Ivanov and Max Lundgren. But before we dive in, let's do a little bit of a refresher in case we've got some new fans or folks who just don't pay this close attention in the summertime.

2:49 Speaker 1: What is Development Camp and why does it matter?

2:53 Speaker 4: Development Camp is a summer program. It's held by all of the NHL teams and it's their newly drafted and their signed prospects.

3:01 Speaker 1: There are some.

3:02 Speaker 4: Invites that come as well. They might invite people that they're interested in. I've noticed a lot of times that the invites are playing with somebody who's already in our pipeline, So that's generally how that again there, so it's people that we might be keeping an eye on, maybe some undrafted free agents that we want to check out. The players are usually between eighteen and twenty or twenty one. Some of them can be a little older depending on where they are and their development. But the teams get to know the players.

3:31 Speaker 4: The players get to know the team culture, the training methods, the coaching staff. They focus on skills, nutrition, training, and sports psychology, and then they help the players to come up with the development plan for the next year. I think we last year. We're talking about it like hockey school, and that's really what it is for these guys is they're just coming in getting a taste of this, but also coming up with a game plan moving forward.

3:57 Speaker 2: And Mary bet this was a question thank you came up last week while some of us were there physically. But are there typically any scouts? I think this is a question that fans would want to know the answer to.

4:10 Speaker 1: No, usually, I think now.

4:13 Speaker 4: I do think that there may be some people keeping an eye on the notes that come out, the video that comes out, But people aren't going to other teams' development camps. But there was one player in here who this is like his third development camp. It was at the Krack and he was at Vegas. So you do see them going to different camps if they haven't signed into a system or committed to a system. But it's not because they're somebody has been in there scouting them. In the seats now, Bruins Brass is often there, but they sit way up and not anywhere near us.

4:46 Speaker 1: Peasants freezing out gas is off exactly. My god, was that rink cold.

4:52 Speaker 5: It was good on a hot week though, So it's a really great opportunity. The vast majority of the players who are in attendance are players that have been drafted by that team.

5:04 Speaker 1: And then, like you said, there are a handful of players who are invited.

5:09 Speaker 5: They are not already signed somewhere or drafted for a variety of reasons.

5:15 Speaker 1: Their pathway is a little bit different.

5:16 Speaker 5: A lot of the invites I noticed this year, for the most part, came from the NC DOUBLEA. Then there were a couple of invites who were we had a WHL invite, but a lot of them came from NC DOUBLEA. And of course.

5:34 Speaker 1: There are draft picks there who are currently also in the NC DOUBLEA.

5:38 Speaker 5: But that kind of got us thinking about some of these changes that the NCUBA has adopted over the last couple of years. Most notably, the biggest change was last season in which players who had gone into juniors, which is technically professional hockey because they get compensated. Previously had never been allowed to then go and play in the NCUBA because the NCUBLEA would only take players who still maintained amateur status. That changed last year because we saw Gavin McKenna be the flagship players so to speak, to do this thing where he played juniors and then went to Penn State.

6:17 Speaker 5: Another change that's coming down the pike that I'm not as familiar with.

6:22 Speaker 1: Explain the next phase of.

6:24 Speaker 5: The change and maybe how is that going to change the landscape of prospects.

6:30 Speaker 4: So this change is going to affect prospects who are going to enroll in college in fall twenty twenty seven or later. We need to talk about it now, though, because it changes the way NCUBA eligibility is applied up until next year. The waved eligibility worked was you would get four years of playing within a five year period. There's all sorts of different rules and regulations in there. But you hear about somebody read shirting. They might sit out a year to protect a year of eligibility. That's not how it's working now.

7:06 Speaker 4: For most of the college athletes who are coming in right after high school, they may actually be able to get another season in or so. But this is instead of four seasons within a five year clock, it's a five year eligibility window, but it's tied to your age and your enrollment. But now the NCAA clock begins on the academic year after the nineteenth birthday, but depends on when you're born when that clock is starting. That's why any of the players in juniors now need to be thinking about where's my clock.

7:47 Speaker 4: What I think is going to happen with this is I am thinking that people are still going to be playing their time in juniors and not necessarily cutting that, But as we've been seeing more and more is maybe cutting their time in the NC Double A, not playing all four years there still getting in a few years in juniors. Now there may be some who just play a year or so in juniors and then get their full four years in an NC Double A. We're going to have to see how this ends up playing out. There was a lot of pushback on this for hockey because hockey development is very different than a lot of other sports.

8:22 Speaker 4: Most sports don't have this very intricate and important.

8:26 Speaker 1: Development window of juniors.

8:28 Speaker 5: So does that mean that the clock starts at age nineteen regardless if they plan to go to an NC DOUBLEA like the max, they will max out in age potentially before they max out the number of eligible seasons. Correct.

8:47 Speaker 1: Interesting.

8:48 Speaker 5: I get it, because especially at D one hockey schools, you have players coming in who are probably going to be a little bit older. Again, they could be going and playing American years, which is still considered at the time you're preserving their amateur status. So they would come in and be a twenty two year old freshman, but then they would have for years, so they were graduating. If they played their full eligibility at twenty six years of age, but now it sounds like it's a max out at.

9:21 Speaker 4: Twenty four depending on when your birthday hits. Interesting, so if you turn nineteen in August, it's very different than if you turn nineteen in September.

9:31 Speaker 1: Kind of like enrolling for school.

9:33 Speaker 4: With these kids, kind of there's got to be a lot of thought in how they're doing it, So it's important just to keep this in mind. Again, we're not going to be seeing it until next season, but it may affect some of the choices that some of our prospects are making based on their development.

9:49 Speaker 5: I actually kind of like this idea of this concept because I think the biggest criticism and concern around the NCAA rule change from last year was you've got kids who.

10:01 Speaker 1: Are going to be doing juniors.

10:03 Speaker 5: They're going to come in and they're going to obviously be really talented because they've played in Canadian juniors, which is really high level of hockey, and the number of spots available for especially American players, it's going to be that much more competitive because you've got this injection of potentially significantly more talented players coming into the pool. But then this is like the protection piece from the NCAA for their American players, because if an American player decides to only do one year of West juniors, they might be able to get in sooner as opposed to other players who are doing Canadian juniors, and it's not uncommon for them to make that jump from Canadian juniors to the NHL because Canadian Juniors is effectively that prep league for the NAA, whereas NC DOUBLEA is the prep league for the NHL for a lot of Americans.

11:04 Speaker 5: So I like this in this sense that it kind of takes back a little bit of that control that it seemed to me that the NC DOUBLEA was kind of giving up.

11:13 Speaker 1: But we'll see how it works out in practice.

11:15 Speaker 4: I think we have to see how the players end up using it, how they end up responding to it, and I think then we'll know better because I think there's an argument made for both sides. I can see the more level playing field, but I also see what the Canadian junior system does and the.

11:32 Speaker 1: Kind of product that we see from that.

11:34 Speaker 5: Yeah, this whole NC DOUBLEA change has even gone so far as to motivate USA Hockey to completely change their development pathway for older players. They're creating a new league, so to speak of more elite junior level, again still amateur, but trying to create another layer to amp up the talent and the competitiveness for American players to compete on a more level playing field with Canadian junior players who are coming in and also trying out for NCAA spots. Like it's legitimately enough of a concern for USA Hockey and seeing how these rules have changed access for American players so very interesting.

12:20 Speaker 5: Love to see good competition among young players because you want to see them grow and develop, and that is why something like dev camp exists, so that way we can track some of these players and see how they've changed and see how they take what they've learned. I think we'll kick it off with obviously the biggest name and our biggest player out there, Dean Laturno. He's been there, I believe he's done it three years now. This is a third development camp where I've seen him. Actually, the first dev Camp I covered was right after his draft.

12:53 Speaker 5: I've been watching him for the last obviously during the year as well, but for the last three dev camps.

12:58 Speaker 1: So my gosh, what difference a year makes.

13:03 Speaker 2: I went three days. He looked like a man amongst boys, honestly in there. No, but he's got a rocket for a shot, and he moves relatively fluidly. I still think there's some work he can do on his ease of movement. And I don't know if that has anything to do with the fact that he's a big boy.

13:23 Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean he's sturdy. Let's put it that way.

13:27 Speaker 5: When I think of like Zadanochara being of similar height, in my mind, Chara, it was this skinny player, very live beanpole of a man that is not Dean Laturno. So give us his little background and then some things that you've noticed that have changed since he's started with us.

13:46 Speaker 4: He is a rising junior at BC, and for anybody who's followed his career, they may remember his freshman.

13:53 Speaker 1: Year was not full of stars. He was supposed to.

13:56 Speaker 4: Have another year of development, and then one of the BC players ended up going pro a year earlier than expected. A space opened up, so he took it, and he had an injury. It turns out that year too. But his freshman year not awesome. This past year, completely different year at BC. He was second only to James Hagens. Really you could see it at camp. So he is faster, he's stronger, he's confident, and again this is from watching him for the last three years. He is a leader on the ice now and you wouldn't have said that last year.

14:29 Speaker 4: You wouldn't even have predicted that was where it was going. Obviously the Bruins knew that before we did. He spit out this year, not just because of his size. The first year was like, yep, he's taller than everybody and I see him. But other than that he didn't stand out. This time he did. He's becoming better at creating his chances. There was a play on Wednesday during the three on three scrimmages that he made some space, he squeezed his way through and he just made this nasty goal. It was so much fun were watching that and I thought, oh, we wouldn't have seen this from him last year.

15:04 Speaker 4: But the kind of stuff that he's been picking up, this is the kind of stuff he's learning by the minutes he put in, by the time he put it, and quite frankly, the hard work he's been putting it. Yeah, he's going to be the number one guy at BC this year. It would not surprise me if he comes up next spring after the BC season ends, but because he skipped juniors, I wouldn't hate it if he had an extra year of development. So I think that decision will be made when they see how this year goes for him.

15:34 Speaker 1: He was an interesting one for me to watch. I was only there for one day.

15:37 Speaker 5: I went for the first day where there were a lot of drills, which I love to watch that kind of stuff. I watched that three days a week during the season with ten year olds, So like I'm very familiar with all the foundations of hockey and the basic skills.

15:53 Speaker 1: That doesn't matter.

15:54 Speaker 5: How old you are, if you're eight or eighteen, you're all doing quite literally the exact same thing. An interesting one to observe because again I think his sheer size can sometimes make it a little bit tricky to evaluate his skating. I know that the skating was a huge issue commented on last year and that it has improved. And it's hard to compare him to someone like will Zeller's, who will get to because will Zeller's is seven inches shorter than him.

16:27 Speaker 1: There's just difference in size.

16:29 Speaker 5: Yeah, and not just like Hite build and everything, and watching him skates, he had decent foundation of skating skills. What I thought was really interesting in watching him was some of his technical ability. I think he I would hope continues to work on and develop. And watching players in drills is very different than watching players play in the game. Playing in a game can hide all manner of sins because there's so much going on, But the technical foundation really becomes important and evident in gameplay when you have to make a lot of decisions quickly, or you have to move and do three things at the same time, and when you have that solid technical foundation, those are things that you don't even have to think about, so you continue to have that mental acuity to then finish the shot lift the puck.

17:25 Speaker 5: One of my favorite drills that I saw them doing was a kind of a passing drill where they went down the boards and went back up and passed the puck, and then went down again and passed the puck, and they had to do it three or four times, and not every guy could then lift the puck at the end because they were doing like fifty different things motions right, and some degree of fatigue, mental fatigue or whatever prevented most of them from even being able to lift the puck. At the end of it, he still has that potential to hone those particular skills.

17:55 Speaker 5: I did like what I saw from him. He's got a lot of henchel I love the size. I love seeing a player be able to utilize that, especially in board battles. I saw him do a great job in that regard. So I think he's going to be really interesting future ruin hopefully as long as he continues the hard work.

18:16 Speaker 1: For sure.

18:16 Speaker 4: Now I agree with you, and I do think one of the things we want to keep in mind about development camp is as we are seeing they are playing against other developing players. Now again, I do think Laturno looks great. I'm seeing all this improvement, a lot of good stuff happening with him. But what happens is when people see someone like Laturno standing out at camp, it's their immediate reaction to, hey, let's bring him up where's laturn.

18:42 Speaker 5: No, No, he is he is destined for the AHL for a little bit.

18:49 Speaker 2: Well, and let's point when this comes up again, let's point to the fact that we did bring James Hagen up here, and he looked like a deer in the headlights during really did the ice time that he got in the playoffs, and we all know the transition from one venue to another and then jumping into the playoffs are all vastly different things.

19:14 Speaker 1: You know. I think people need to pump the brakes on.

19:18 Speaker 2: You know, when we get a shiny new toy, right, you want to see that shiny new toy go from zero to one thousand all at once. And that's not how it works for these younger players. I mean, we want to see them grow and develop because they are part of the future, right and so you don't want to quash that by throwing them into a situation that they're not quite ready for yet. We can have conversations about the Bruins hesitancy in that regard at the AHL level, where hopefully we're seeing a shift in that mindset moving forward, but let these guys grow and blossom in the venues that they're in right now.

19:59 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly right.

20:01 Speaker 4: So I always have a disclaimer when we're talking about our prospects and our developing players.

20:08 Speaker 2: There's a path to develop. There's a reason why it's called development camp.

20:13 Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a great reminder that when you're watching players at dev camp. This is a pond that is very small, and someone can look like a really big fish there.

20:25 Speaker 1: But the pond for AHL level.

20:27 Speaker 5: Play and then NHL level play significantly larger.

20:32 Speaker 1: So where's so you said Dean is going back to being back to the junior year a BC.

20:38 Speaker 4: We'll see how that plays out at the end of the season, whether we see him come up to the Bruins or whether he does another year of BC. I'm not going to be grudge a kid if they're close to ready who wants to start making some money.

20:51 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's tough. It's tough to not do that. It's tough to say no.

20:57 Speaker 5: Will Zellers tell us a little bit about him, what number kid was.

21:01 Speaker 2: He's got some sick hands and he can molder me. And I think I will say this about him. Out of all of the players that were out there, he seemed to me to be the kid that was having the most fun out there all weeks. He just looked like he was having a great time. Yes, love to see he did last year too. The kid loves to play hockey and it just shows he just full of joy, just yucking it up with teammates. Or goofing around, and this should be part of the component of the week.

21:35 Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, I agreed. And it's a game at the end of the day, it's a game. It's a serious game, and they're making a career of it. But particularly at summer camp.

21:45 Speaker 2: Though, I will I will say that there was at one of the scrimmages. I think it was the first scrimmage we saw that he and Vaughn kind of got into it a little bit along the boards and that, Yeah, there was. I kind of liked, I'm like, WHOA good for you guys. One of you is back and down. Wasn't anything nasty, dirty or anything like that, but neither one was taking any crap from the other in the corner, So I thought that was pretty good. Yeah.

22:12 Speaker 4: So will Is he's twenty years old. We got him last year in a trade with Colorado. He was at camp. Yeah, so this is his second camp with us, and I'm sure he was a camp in twenty twenty four with the Avalanche. He was a third round pick. I loved watching him last year because he had fun and he was a great pairing with Hagens. This year, he was a lot of fun to watch. Actually, in the scrimmages with Pelosi. They made a great pairing. He's great with the puck on his stick. He is a playmaker, and he's a very offensive player.

22:45 Speaker 4: Not offensive offensive, but he guts snipe a shot too.

22:51 Speaker 5: Yes, he can very high skill player. I really enjoyed watching like these little surprises.

22:57 Speaker 2: It was fun to watch when he got the puck on his he was fun to watch.

23:01 Speaker 5: But by no means David Pasternak, I'm not equating him in terms of talent. However, one of those kinds of players who they hand out little treats of look at this little thing I can do. Here's a little treat for you, and it's just, oh my god, that was fantastic.

23:17 Speaker 1: I loved seeing that.

23:18 Speaker 4: Now he is a rising sophomore at North Dakota, so he's going to be NCAA for the second year. Had a great season last season. He led the stretch at the end of the first day, and I always like to see that because it shows that it's a sign of leadership, but it's also showing a level of trust from the coaches. It's anyone who you see leading the stretch is given a certain amount of responsibility from the coaches and saying, hey, listen, we believe in you.

23:45 Speaker 1: Good job, and it's really a sign of respect.

23:48 Speaker 2: And you know what, he didn't take any shift off, any drill off he went. He went one hundred and ten percent no matter what he was asked to do, which I think is significant for any in my view.

24:01 Speaker 1: He was super smooth.

24:02 Speaker 5: They had a puck handling drill where they had to do a lot of slalom skating and then also passing the puck under these little things I don't know what to call them to get to the goaltender, and he was just smooth as silk.

24:15 Speaker 1: It was beautiful to watch.

24:17 Speaker 5: He also had a really good year last year in World Juniors. He participated and had a pretty impactful series there. I think with Hagen's right, he played Yeah, and again they were fun to watch. They played well off each other. We're look into the future, we're starting to look at hopefully some future linemates.

24:36 Speaker 2: But I thought just popped into my head, you know, don't overrate the importance of these players having played with each other.

24:45 Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, and that actually brings me Cooper Simpson, who is here for his we drafted him last year, keeps a Chel, but he is.

24:53 Speaker 1: Also heading to North Dakota.

24:55 Speaker 4: Holmens Nullers are going to be teammates.

24:57 Speaker 5: This year, all right, So let's shift gears little bit to the defensive side of things. The Bruins' identity for years now has been solid, good defense, and it's something that we have struggled with the last couple of years, and so seeing the defensive players out there gave me hope. There were a lot of names that I have recognized from past drafts, past DEV camps, but two guys that I want to touch on are Lokijo Hanssen and Christian Kostadinski. Primarily because with Kostadinski, we talked about him last year as being somebody of note and I one hundred percent noticed him.

25:41 Speaker 5: But also with Johansen, he was the only player there who actually has AHL experience, and I have to say I could tell, and I'm not saying because the other kids were not good, but his degree of control, especially like in his skating.

26:02 Speaker 2: Listen to me, I want to talk about anybody that plays defense. Yes, over six feet tall and weighs over two hundred pounds, Yes, sign me.

26:13 Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a big guy.

26:15 Speaker 4: He is twenty we drafted him in twenty twenty four in the sixth round. This is his third camp. He just finished year one of a three year contract. We've got two more years with him. Last season he split his time between Maine and Providence. When I'm watching him accamp this year, I saw some really good stuff from him on the boards. He was just really solid there, and I've seen so much growth in his game over the last couple of years. Again, he made that shift going up until playing to the professional level.

26:45 Speaker 4: Now, what I'm hoping is that he gets more time in Providence than Maine, if not all the time Improvidence, So I think that'll be really helpful. I don't think it was great for him to bounce around between the two. I think that some consistency and your team and your linemates really helps you to develop as far as it goes. The one thing that I don't love, I think that in part he can be a little bit behind and still kind of reach out and catch up. But I'd love to see him anticipating that and just getting a little bit more ahead of stuff.

27:17 Speaker 4: He led the stretch on day two, so again seeing that trust, that leadership from the coach. I always love to see that from them. But yeah, I definitely am seeing some good stuff from him. Definitely a huge jump from last year to this year and from the first year I saw him.

27:34 Speaker 5: So where do you see him potentially reappearing. I have to assume we're going to see him at rookie camp because of all the guys that we saw, most of these players who have been drafted, seems like they're pretty much all going back to college in the fall.

27:55 Speaker 1: So do we think we'll see him at rookie camp.

27:58 Speaker 4: I think he'll be at rookie camp. I think he's in that position to vye for a job. Some of that's going to be dependent on as we shake it all out after all of the stuff that's going on in the past few weeks, who else is coming up? Who else is aiming for that job? But rookie camp is about now. Remember too, it's rookie camp. There are some players that are already on the Bruins squad, so they're not coming to rookie Camp. They have a job. So it's how many spots do we have and who's fighting for those jobs?

28:27 Speaker 4: So we should get over the coming weeks, we should have an idea of who's going to be invited to rookie camp.

28:32 Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope he gets a look.

28:35 Speaker 2: I appreciated during the scrimmages watching the aggressive way that he played defense.

28:42 Speaker 5: Well, we talk about this quite often, especially when we're talking about young players, whether they're at in Boston at the NHL level or at the other levels. Different positions develop at different rates because of the varying skills sets that they need to master. They're just might be more things that you have to do and perfect with those foundational skills. Forwards tend to hit peak and either're gonna hit their ceiling a lot. Younger twenty five to twenty six defenceman. I've always kind of seen that magic age be twenty seven to twenty eight, and then goalies are the last ones because there's fifty billion things that they have to be doing in a game.

29:24 Speaker 5: And so Johansson is twenty. That is an infant in terms of position. But I agree, I really hope to see him play full time in Providence. I got to see him play that one game I just happened to be in Providence for and he was there and very noticeable even amongst those players. So he's what I'm excited for because again he's been in the system for three years, so I love to see them continue to grow and develop. Christian Costadinski, you can't see the other people, but I am like rubbing my.

29:57 Speaker 1: Hands together over this kid. What six two thirty five Maria is drooling, rueling.

30:06 Speaker 4: You. He's tons of promise there. So he is twenty one. We drafted him in twenty twenty three, is a seventh round pick. This is his third camp and he is a rising sophomore at BC. One of the things with Costadinsky is he was not a strong skater, and that is putting it quite kindly. In twenty twenty four, he is still working on his skating. But I will tell you BC unbelievable job developing players and are teaching them to skate. We have BC to thank for coastadentinkcoming a skater.

30:42 Speaker 2: I was surprised because I made note of this about how smoothly and cleanly he was able to move the puck out of the defensive zone during battle drills that were happening.

30:56 Speaker 1: But the scrimmage.

30:58 Speaker 4: One of the things I actually one of the notes I took was on Tuesday, I was noticing he had some really great reps with some really solid edgework, and it was noticeable to me, in part because I've been watching him the last few years, but it was enough to even to catch my eye. That's one of the things at DEV campus. There's a lot of players on the ice. They don't wear numbers, so unless you're back is to you, you have no idea who I don't know who it is you start to catch your eye. Now he does, because he's just big.

31:26 Speaker 1: He's vague.

31:27 Speaker 4: But the first year that I saw met camp Laturno's first year, they were really big guys. But now we've got more coming up, so it's not as much of oh it must be Costaedinski. Now, let's be honest, he still is a giant among bigger players, but it is interesting that we're starting to catch up a little bit.

31:45 Speaker 2: No, but someone for someone who's six six, two thirty five, right, he's likely still hasn't finished developing.

31:54 Speaker 1: Let's face it.

31:55 Speaker 2: You know, Zudana Shower Hall of Famer, one of the greatest defensemans ever pull on a Bruins jersey, but neverthe most fleet of foot with his skating right because of his size and gangliness. If that's a technical term to use when you see a kid like this Kostadinski who seems to be like, geez, you look pretty good for a big man.

32:18 Speaker 1: Yeah, you take notice of that.

32:20 Speaker 5: Yeah, And I mean there's always going to be that kind of We discussed that Maria at camp. The illusion of well, gee, is this giant player just not as good as a skater. Don't look at their the speed of their feet, and look more at how much distance can they cover? How efficient is there skating and are they in proper skating form? Because you want to see a guy like that be really efficient in his skating. You don't need to see him, you know, stumping his feet and going super fast with his legs, because that would just be insane.

32:55 Speaker 5: His legs are probably four feet long to the you're already there exactly, so he definitely stood out. He's going back to Boston College. You said he's going into his sophomore yearly.

33:08 Speaker 4: Into his sophomore year, so we've got and my guess is he takes four years to develop there.

33:13 Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean again, why not? Why not? Right?

33:16 Speaker 5: Especially for defensemen, you want to make sure that they cook as hon as goaltenders. Now, before we talk about the two goalies that I wanted to address being Yuri Ivanov, who literally was drafted Saturday and then showed up in Boston on Monday, which I love those little stories how that happens.

33:34 Speaker 1: And then there's Max Lugren Kyle Chavet.

33:37 Speaker 4: Yeah, so Kyle was an inviting to camp and he's twenty four years old. He graduated from University of New Hampshire last spring, and while we were at camp it was announced he is going to be the ebug for the Bruins this year.

33:51 Speaker 1: Good on the local kid, Good on the local kid.

33:55 Speaker 4: Now it's important to know the NHL actually changed the ebug role this year.

33:59 Speaker 1: Yes, everyone has to carry one now. No more random zamboni driver. No no, no.

34:07 Speaker 4: What's going to be fun for Kyle is he's going to travel and practice with the team. He doesn't count against our cap pit, he's not technically signed to an NHL contract that the ebug needs to be someone who has never played an NHL game and cannot have played professionally in the last three years for more than eighty games. So it is still the spirit of this zamboni.

34:33 Speaker 2: The zamboni driver, right, but it's not exactly the letter of everyone. You're not going up in the stands and plucking a guy out.

34:41 Speaker 1: Of the buildings.

34:45 Speaker 2: Do they do they get? This is where I got a little lost in the weeds with the rule. Do these ebugs receive some type of payment?

34:53 Speaker 1: They are? I couldn't find exactly what it is.

34:55 Speaker 2: Because I thought I was losing it that I'm like, these guys are going to be doing this for nothing.

35:00 Speaker 4: I knew it was an organization higher somebody in the organization, but the player.

35:06 Speaker 5: I'm assuming they invited him knowing that he probably had that job and they just hadn't announced it because he was an invite I gotta tell you, not knowing any of that till you told us this this morning. My very first note on him was great feet. Love his feet, his footwork excellent. They say that the goalie actually has to be your best skater, the best one on their skates out of the entire team, and he had fantastic feet.

35:34 Speaker 1: But that stood out to me.

35:35 Speaker 5: But we're not really here to talk too much about him because he's not really in the pipeline. Let's talk about Yuri Ivanov, this guy, like I said, besides loving watching these drills anyways, I am always drawn to watching the goalies because again, my kid, it's a goalie. I watch goaltending fundamentals constantly. This guy, when he was out on the ice, I believe he was out there with Chavette and another player who is just an invite. And he's six foot two, so he's not like excessively tall, and he was only like an inch taller than the other two players out there.

36:11 Speaker 5: But the space that this kid takes up, with how he positions himself, probably the equipment he's using. Holy cow, this kid takes up the net. And he was the Bruins' first pick for this year's draft. I believe, yes he was.

36:27 Speaker 4: Oh he is actually only seventeen, so this is what makes him pretty amazing. In my book seventeen, he'll turn eighteen in September. We already talked about how goalies developed later. He is playing right now in the MHK, so that is the Russian juniors. He'll be going back to Russian juniors. Last year, in seventeen games, he had a zo point nine two four safe percentage and a two point six to two goals against average, So nice numbers. He should be there for the next couple of years. He's got no five hole, and he's got, as you mentioned, great lateral movement, and he takes up the net.

37:01 Speaker 4: The one thing I started to notice, but this is the thing I don't pay too much attention to goalies at dev camp. They're young, and they basically are petned with goals for four solid days.

37:11 Speaker 2: I don't even know how you can qualify it is development camp for these poor goalies because all they're seeing.

37:18 Speaker 1: Is rubber, rubber, rubber, rubber, rubber.

37:20 Speaker 2: From the town they set foot on the ice until they get off the ice, so it's really difficult to kind of make an assessment of them.

37:29 Speaker 1: The one thing that.

37:29 Speaker 2: I did notice early on in the development camp, and it wasn't just him, but it seemed like most of the goalies were really struggling with shots up high, you know, anything that was top's shelf or glove side or by the shoulder. They were having a hard time. And maybe that was just to start a camp and not understanding what the hell they was supposed to be doing or what their roles were on the ice as the goalies there, but yeah, I did feel bad for them in that regard.

37:59 Speaker 5: This is kind of my take on what I see with the goalies. So one of the things that I watched while the skaters were doing their warm up skate drills, the goalies we're having a little bit of one on one time with the goalie coach doing not only their version of warm ups and doing some post work, but they have that opportunity.

38:23 Speaker 1: That one on one time with the.

38:25 Speaker 5: Goalie coach to do some training work, a little bit of coaching that was happening there. They'll do their little thing and then the coach will talk to them afterwards, and then they do it again and they implement those kinds of changes, because that's kind of how goalie training works.

38:40 Speaker 1: In that sense. It's not like with a.

38:43 Speaker 5: Skaters drill, where okay, you got to skate to the dock here, and you got to pick up the puck and you got to pass it, and you got to do all these very obvious things. With the goalies, it's going to be a lot more smaller action, smaller movements that they're gonna practice the same kind of little routine over and over and over again. That might not seem like a ton is going on, but I saw them doing that in that kind of one on one time and then for the most part, I would say, when they are out there facing the shots and everything, I really wish I was there for that day that you saw you were texting me Maria about the goalies, because I.

39:17 Speaker 1: Probably could have been able to assess it a little bit better.

39:19 Speaker 5: When they get into the net to serve as foil for the skater, I'm not I don't want to say that they're not trying hard, but the point isn't necessarily to stop every puck like you would have them in a game. So it's entirely possible that, yes, man, we got issues up to one hundred percent could be but the fact that it sounded like every single one of them was doing that kind of tells me that maybe what they were doing was doing a like an eighty percent effort, right right.

39:53 Speaker 2: It's not a knock on, well, no knock got just something I noticed, but very interesting.

39:59 Speaker 5: How so different development is for goalies and the training and everything that kind of goes in.

40:05 Speaker 1: Who cooking up a good goalie.

40:07 Speaker 5: That's why we have so many in the system, because you never know how they're going to turn out.

40:10 Speaker 1: It's like sourdough, My god, you don't know. It just seventeen year old who knows. Now.

40:14 Speaker 4: Again, this is an important thing to keep in mind too when we talk about development camp. When you see video of some of these players and stuff, we don't actually know what they're working on every time. So it may be like, boy, they really don't look like they're doing this skill great, But it may be that the coach said, I'd like you to do this while we're you know, while we're performing this particular exercise. Now, the one thing I did notice is for Ivanov, and I feel like he was over anticipating what was coming and wasn't necessarily correcting in the moment.

40:46 Speaker 4: But again, they're peppered with goals for four straight days. You do see them getting fatigued by day four when you're just sitting there getting after put well.

40:55 Speaker 2: And you know what, they were sharp. They were sharper during the scrimmage component of the development camp. Yeah, definitely a different level now.

41:04 Speaker 5: Max Lundgren, even though he's from Sweden, local boy so to speak. Merrimack College won the Hockey East this year this past the spring with him and net.

41:16 Speaker 6: He's huge and it was the MVP of the tournament. He's huge, He's genormous. Yeah, he's six ft five. He literally takes up a lot of space.

41:29 Speaker 5: Let's hear I want to hear from you, but I just my one comment about him was I didn't love his feet as much as I loved Chauvet's feet. But man, he can quickly get to the other side just because of how freakin' tall he is.

41:43 Speaker 4: Yeah, he's twenty four. We signed him as a free agent in March, like right at the end of his season. He was undrafted. Obviously, he had a little bit of a different path. He actually played youth hockey in Sweden. He had a little stint in the USHL. He was NCAA ineligible first freshman year due to the league that he played in in Sweden.

42:04 Speaker 1: This was nc Double A.

42:05 Speaker 4: Rules were different then, so he started Merrimac playing his software year even though he went there as a freshman. So basically, again this red shirt rule, he's somebody who would have been caught up in the new rules there. From everything I can find about him, he is a responsible, hard worker and he took his college education very seriously. I just think that speaks to a level of maturity we don't always see at this age. So again, he led the Hockey East in wins, he was MVP of the Hockey East tournament, had the most saves.

42:38 Speaker 1: In the NC DOUBLEA.

42:39 Speaker 4: This year, We've got a few goalies in the pipeline and I'm not quite sure where they're going to shake out. I think he's going to end up being Providence, not Maine.

42:48 Speaker 1: I gotta see. We just signed somebody new who I don't know enough about.

42:51 Speaker 5: I think one of the things that Boston Bruins organization has done tremendously well in regards to their development. There meant some issues with how they developed some of the skaters, but goaltending development is just one of those things that.

43:06 Speaker 1: The Bruins do. They seem to do consistently well.

43:09 Speaker 2: And I will say I'm glad that they're changing their mindset in terms of you know, one of the criticisms that many of us have levied at the Boston Bruins is they never had a plan for the ultimate departure of the trees bergeron and David Craigie. Well, now you've got a franchise goalie right in Jeremy Swainman. You know how long you have him, His deal is going to be very team friendly at the end of it, but you have to be prepared for the eventuality that you're going to need to fill that role, you know.

43:45 Speaker 2: I'm glad to see that they're at least living for the future and not just the now these days.

43:51 Speaker 4: And I do want to mention we did have one more goalie at camp, Roberto. He was HL for Green Bay Leader Safe percentage was right. He is starting at BC in the fall, so again it's the bunk from college bruin point. But that's I want to make sure I mention him this year sixth round. But he's also going to be another friend at BC. And also he's the only goalie we didn't talk about. Make sure we mention his name, yes, of course.

44:16 Speaker 5: And I wonder if we will see any of these goalies come back next year to the dev camp, because it almost seems like when it comes to the DEV Camp, the goalie piece tends to be revolving, which could be entirely a byproduct of the fact that the way that you develop goaltenders is very different. I think, Maria, to your point of looking to the future, when Tim Thomas left, we had Tuka, You've stepped right up. When Tuka left, we had swaymen pay up in so we've been very lucky in that regard.

44:54 Speaker 1: We've not had that gap.

44:56 Speaker 5: And I think, for as much as we like to make fun of Don Sweene this summer collecting goalies like their pokemon, he and his staff know what they're doing when it comes to collecting a large variety of different kinds of goalies. Because it is such a long term gamble, you're not gonna see the return for a number of years.

45:19 Speaker 1: So it's smart, as much as I hate to admit him being smart. But so what comes next?

45:26 Speaker 5: When are we gonna maybe hear about rookie camp and who's in attendance.

45:31 Speaker 4: Over the next couple of weeks, the schedule for the year is going to come out. We'll get the roster for rookie camp that's often played around with right up until right before camp, and that's going to be the second week of September.

45:43 Speaker 1: For most of these.

45:44 Speaker 4: Guys, they're younger, they have a game plan for next year. We're not necessarily going to see them unless you're following NCUBA or some of the junior leagues, which is fine. We will see a lot of these players again next year, and I'll have an article on sub Stack with some of the players, because obviously I could talk all day about all of them.

46:05 Speaker 1: To listen to that we had.

46:07 Speaker 4: We had a pretty big draft class, but they were lower tiered picks this year compared to sometimes when we've got these first round picks like Laturno or Higgins that are that are really exciting.

46:17 Speaker 1: It doesn't mean they're not going to be good.

46:20 Speaker 5: Last year, a lot of the attendees from dev Camp did end up going to Rookie Camp because they had completed whatever developmental path they were on. This year, that's not necessarily the case because we had so many kind of graduate from dev Camp and go on to HL or EHL. Got a lot of guys now who have filled in these spots and so we're not going to see most of them.

46:46 Speaker 4: The ones that will see at Rookie Camp are going to be the ones who are going to be playing either they're going to get the invite to the big show as that we're up in Boston, they'll be in Providence, they'll be in Maine. Most of these players, they're younger, particularly the newly drafted ones. They're younger. They are NCAA, they are juniors. Got you know my standout of camp, which again i'll put on this sub sect, Popkov. He's only seventeen. It plays Russian juniors.

47:12 Speaker 2: He's got some sick hands, that kid. Yeah, you and I chatted about this on Thursday, Mary Beth. The start of the scrimmage or at the drills, he didn't really look engaged to begin the day. Then he stepped it up definitely during the scrimmage.

47:30 Speaker 4: One of the things that's really interesting about development camp is that some of the players who are invisible to me all week, you putting them in the scrimmage, and all of a sudden they are shining and you're just like, where.

47:41 Speaker 1: Have you been on where have you been?

47:43 Speaker 4: Or there's ones that you've been watching during these drills, during these exercises, and you're looking for the scrimmage, you're like, well, where are you?

47:50 Speaker 1: Are you even playing out there? Which is why you do both. Yeah, it's very exciting. But thank you again, Marybeth for you, Yes, for your thorough assessment. Yes, I'm giving up a lot of your time.

48:03 Speaker 5: Yeah, we're gonna chat again at the very end of the summer, maybe get a refresher on some names that we've seen before. Maybe there's gonna be someone that we've not really ever talked about, so that'll be exciting to see who our more immediate prospects are as September approaches. In the meantime, we're gonna put together you and I some stuff for the substack, a little bit more detail and more information about these players and how you can keep track of them, where to watch them if you're nearby some D one hockey or junior hockey.

48:38 Speaker 5: How can our listeners find you, Maribeth?

48:43 Speaker 1: You can find me on my socials.

48:44 Speaker 4: I am always at mb skis, I'm active on threads, I'm on Instagram, I'm on blue Sky, So you can find me all those places at mb skis.

48:54 Speaker 1: And so happy start of our fourth season.

48:58 Speaker 5: We have lots on the calendar for this summer. It may be summertime, but we still always have hockey to talk about.

49:06 Speaker 1: We'll be talking about some of our newer.

49:09 Speaker 5: Players who have returned to Boston or who are starting in Boston, and a little bit later this month, we will do a recap of a crazy free agency for everybody else but apparently Boston, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, make sure you like and subscribe for more content, and be sure to leave a rating and review to help other Bruins fans find us. You can support the podcast by joining our Patreon or following us on our socials and on substack at Tape to Tape mk dot substack dot com.

49:42 Speaker 2: Any final thoughts Getting close to hockey season starting ever so closer, So writing every day is a step closer.

49:50 Speaker 4: As I tell my niece, rest up, hydrate, and get ready because the season will be here before we know it.

49:55 Speaker 1: It sure will. It's going to be an earlier start for sure. As always, go bees O bees, sobees,