Being that it only lasts one week, it’s dangerous to read too much into the development camps for next year’s World Junior Hockey Championships. Still, these evaluation sessions can be crucial for teams to make certain roster decisions, or at least put some players on their radar. It can also be an interesting sample for teams looking to gather a little more intel for the 2011 NHL Entry Draft.
Gare Joyce ran a great blog regarding the camps for ESPN’s NHL section. The author of scouting book “Future Greats and Heartbreaks” provided a “stock watch” based largely on what he saw last week.
One of the biggest movers is Swedish winger Gabriel Landeskog, a player who apparently plays a more “North American style” game than most Swedes. Joyce wrote another story about Landeskog, comparing him to mold-breaking Detroit Red Wings scorers Tomas Holmstrom and Johan Franzen.
Adam Larsson
" ... If you viewed Larsson more objectively, he’s probably coming in around a B-level after this week. If you’d never seen him before Lake Placid, however, you’d ask “Who is this guy?” People view him as the potential No. 1 pick in the 2011 draft, though -- not as a random top-10 guy -- and that brings a certain set of expectations.
His “only OK” game still put him ahead of Oliver Ekman-Larsson, picked by the Phoenix Coyotes in 2009. And honestly, at this point Larrson’s ahead of Victor Hedman at the same age. In Buffalo, he’s going to be on the ice all the time for Sweden and will be seen in a variety of situations. His stock is unchanged right now, but it’s likely going to go up come December.”
Iiro Pakarinen
The Finnish right wing stands about 6-foot-1 and weighs 205 pounds. He leveled Sweden’s Tim Erixon with a forecheck here and knocked the Swede out of the tournament. Pakarinen was born in 1991, plays for Kalpa in the Finnish league and had a few decent games with the under-19 Finland team in European tournament play. He has passed through a couple of drafts so far, though. He’s a low-risk longshot for a team with some loose change.
He looked better in intrasquad games than he did in contests against Sweden and Finland. It might be that he looked good and had a comfort level playing beside Derek Forbort (a first-rounder of the Los Angeles Kings this June); he was less impressive and less effective when he moved beside Brian Dumoulin. One scout in Lake Placid said that Clendening “didn’t have much of a chance to show his shot and his offensive package,” but also said that he should get plenty of chances to do that in Buffalo. Cam Fowler, who was drafted in the first round by the Anaheim Ducks this year, didn’t attend camp but if the Ducks don’t keep him with the big club he can be safely pencilled in at the other PP point; this is a nice mix of left (Fowler) and right (Clendening) shots. Clendening’s stock is rising slightly; he’s a recommended buy.