Arizona Coyotes Training Camp: Day One Overview
Apr. 26, 2013; Glendale, AZ, USA; Phoenix Coyotes players salute the crowd after losing to the Colorado Avalanche 5-4 in a shootout at Jobing.com Arena. Mandatory Credit: Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports
The first official day of training camp as a full, fresh, brand-new Arizona Coyotes is now under our belts. Here are a couple of the highlights we saw-
Talking the Camp Happenings
AZ Central’s Arizona Coyotes beat reporter, Sarah McLellan, gave us the run-down of how things looked over at Gila River Arena for the first day of practice:
"“The end-to-end skating, line rushes and corner battles that took place Friday during the first practice of Coyotes training camp were designed to purge the players of their summer habits, but the session was just as beneficial to coach Dave Tippett and his staff.”"
The practice went about as one would expect it to go; lots of hard drills designed to test endurance, speed, agility, and level of play. These types of practices may not seem as crucial for a head coach, but they’re actually some of the most important practices for these very reasons. The coach can get to know what level each of his skaters is on from right out on the ice with him, and see who needs to improve in what areas the most- before the season begins and it really matters. The fine-tuning will come later, but for now, it’s boot camp time.
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To read McLellan’s full story, check it out here at the AZ Central Sports website.
The first signs of chemistry
One of the most important things about training camp is the development on on-ice chemistry. With new players making up a significant portion of the offense and a top-four pairing defenseman role up for grabs, it’s crucial that the lines start to develop a sense of how to play well together.
The team’s training camp roster is huge- 62 players in all- and was broken up into 3 teams. Don’t get too excited, though, at seeing players skating out in any particular order. Rather than breaking up the teams by skill, the three divisions were made in order to pair some of the new faces on the ice with the veterans. You’ll see Devan Dubnyk, Mike Smith, and Mark Visentin are all split up, as are Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Keith Yandle, and Zbynek Michalek, as well as all of the forwards you would expect to see together. Henrik Samuelsson and Lucas Lessio are on “C” Team together, Tobias Reider gets to hang with Tyler Gaudet on the “B” team, and Max Domi will be practicing with Brendan Perlini on the “A” team as soon as Perlini is cleared to practice again. He missed out on yesterday’s practice due to a hand injury caused by a slash during rookie camp; sitting by him on the bench was prospect Pavel LaPlante, who is still recovering from a scuffle during the second Coyotes-Kings rookie game.
Meeting the New Guys
Arizona Coyotes Media Relations Coordinator Greg Dillard spent the day tweeting out pictures of players to get everyone hyped up, including a pic of BJ Crombeen taking part in the team photo shoot and Sam Gagner getting to stretch on the ice:
Training camp, as always, is free for fans to attend at Gila River Arena, so head on over! If you can’t make it, be sure to catch Fox Sports Arizona’s new series, Building the Pack, which will be aired throughout preseason.