Avalanche Prospects at Development Camp

Team Burgundy of the Colorado Avalanche prospects camp takes instruction. Photo credit: Nadia Archuleta

The Colorado Avalanche prospect development camp took place at the Family Sports Center in Centennial. The Avalanche hosted 22 players — 19 skaters and three goalies — in what looked like a fun morning for everyone.

Every year Colorado hosts this development camp for prospects who hope to make the team. The group is made up of draft picks past and present as well as a few, well, prospects the team is considering.

This year, the camp got a surprise guest — Colorado Avalanche enforcer Patrick Bordeleau. After missing all but seven minutes of last season with injuries, Bordeleau may well have felt like a prospect again.

Head coach Patrick Roy and GM Joe Sakic made a brief appearance to watch the practice. However, the main coaches in the skate this morning were former Avalanche defensive great Adam Foote and skating coach Tracy Tutton. Tutton started out working with figure skaters, but she’s spent the last three lassoing hockey players — that comment will make sense in a later slide. Tutton has worked with the Anaheim Ducks and Tampa Bay Lightning.

In addition to the on-ice activities, the prospects also got to tour Mile High Stadium — well, “tour” is perhaps the wrong word:

So, let’s see what the Avalanche prospect camp looked like.

Next: Team Gray On Ice

Team Gray on Ice

Day 1 of the Avalanche prospect camp started with Team Gray taking to the ice for some shooting practice. Team Gray consists of six players:

• Conner Bleackley (49, center)
• Mikko Rantanen (50, right wing)
• Anton Lindholm (59, defenseman)
• Kyle Wood (62, defenseman)
• Mason Geertsen (65, defenseman)
• Nicolas Meloche (71, defenseman)

The most sought after prospects at the camp, Geertsen and Rantanen, were at first a little shy about showing their faces:

Colorado Avalanche prospect Mikko Rantanen “hides” behind frosted glass. Photo credit: Nadia Archuleta

Eventually the young men came out of hiding. Here’s some video of Geertsen — along with Bleackley and Meloche — participating in a shooting drill:

Next: Warm Ups

Warm Up Stretching

One of the first instruction that Tracy Tutton gave the prospects was in how to stretch. Adam Foote, who works with the Avalanche as a defensive consultant, coached the players in the correct technique:

Left wing AJ Greer, who was on Team Burgundy, got the hang of it pretty quickly:

Colorado Avalanche prospect AJ Greer stretches before participating in skating practice. Photo credit: Nadia Archuleta

AHL defenseman Chris Bigras also seemed to have the drill down:

Colorado Avalanche prospect Chris Bigras stretches at development camp. Photo credit: Nadia Archuleta

Tri-City Americans defenseman Justin Hamonic, apparently fixing to try out for the team, needed a little adjustment in his technique:

Tri-City Americans defenseman Justin Hamonic stretching. Photo credit: Nadia Archuleta

Next: Skating Practice?

Avalanche Prospects Skating Practice

After the Avalanche prospects stretched, they warmed up. Skaters need powerful thighs, and the drills very much looked targeted to working on thigh strength:

Colorado Avalanche prospects warm up during the development camp.

My thighs burned just watching them.

After warming up, Tracy Tutton showed them some proper postures for skating. Proper posture for skating is very different than general proper posture — there’s a whole lot of leaning over. Also, she instructed them to stretch their skate back during the stride. Watch their skating in practice:

Tutton and Adam Foote also recorded the prospects while they were skating. They then showed the prospects their skating to help instruct them:

Adam Foote and Tracy Tutton record video and stats of the Colorado Avalanche prospects.

Once warm ups and video-taking were over, it was down to the skating.

Here’s Mason Geertsen skating backwards (not quite the pivot hips of Erik Johnson, but it’s also a different drill):

Fellow defenseman Nicolas Meloche is not too shabby at the backwards skate:

Of course, winger Mikko Rantanen is all about the forward skate:

No surprise Rantanen is pretty speedy.

Know who else is surprisingly speedy? Goalie prospect Roman Will:

Look at that goalie go!

Next: Mush

Mush

My personal favorite part of the entire day was Tracy Tutton lassoing the prospects and “mushing” down the ice. (I told you we’d get to that.)

Here’s Tutton looking for a likely prospect — literally:

Tracy Tutton prepares to lasso a prospect for a skating drill. Photo credit: Nadia Archuleta

Once she lassoed a prospect, it was mush!

Tracy Tutton explains the skating drill to the Avalanche prospects. Photo credit: Nadia Archuleta

I’m sure there is a technical basis for this skating drill. I imagine it’s at least partially to build strength — because it doesn’t look easy for the prospects to propel down the ice with the arguably petite Tutton in tow:

Avalanche prospect Andreas Martinsen (6-foot-3, 220 pounds) seems to be laboring under the additional load.

Not everyone labored. Prospect JT Compher (5-foot-11, 194 pounds), whom the Avalanche acquired as part of the Ryan O’Reilly trade, didn’t seem too bothered by the additional, well, baggage:

During the drill, Tutton is shouting encouragement and instruction at the prospects. Yet I just can’t help but think she’s secretly thinking “Mush! Mush!”

Anyway, even Patrick Bordeleau got lassoed and mushed:

The Colorado Avalanche prospects development camp takes place for two more days, both days starting out with a different team in shooting drills. Team Blue takes the ice at 8 AM tomorrow with Team Burgundy on Thursday.

Next: Future NHLers Among Current Avs Prospects

More from Mile High Sticking

• Could Colorado Avalanche move on from Pavel Francouz next offseason?
• 4 goalies to replace Pavel Francouz if he has to miss time
• Colorado Avalanche make sneaky signing with Tatar
• Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog could return in 2023-24 playoffs
• Colorado Avalanche rookie face-off tournament roster