Thoughts on the First Two Days of Texas Stars Training Camp


The Texas Stars opened training camp Friday night and participated in their first official on-ice activities on Saturday afternoon. The morning was spent with physical testing, including fitness and concussion baseline tests. Saturday's afternoon practices were broken up into Team White and Black. Sunday, the two teams scrimmaged in the afternoon.

It's tough to get huge sweeping impressions with just two practices and a scrimmage in the bank. The first two days were very pacey though. There were a lot of uptempo drills and drills to get the players' feet under them. "There wasn't a lot of structure [in the afternoon]," said veteran forward Colton Sceviour. "It was just a little bit of stuff to get your feet moving."

"If someone wasn't in shape coming in," Francis Wathier added. "Now they know it."

The overall atmosphere around the camp is far different than the feel the team had at the end of last year. Alex Chiasson agreed, "I think the atmosphere is so much different than the end of the year last year when I was here."

My thoughts on various different players in camp, remembering that this is only based on two practices and a single scrimmage.
  • Hubert Labrie - Had some great physical moments in the scrimmage, showing that he's ready to pick up right where he left off. That's good, since it's gotten crowded on the blue line
  • Jamie Olesiak - Shut down Tomas Vincour, notably, during the scrimmage. Looks every bit as ready for the pro game as he did in Dev Camp
  • Andrew Carroll - Played 68 games in Hershey last year and signed in Idaho. Good pickup by Brad Ralph; he has a physical edge and has hands to contribute at the ECHL level (47 pts in 61 games in ECHL CHarlotte in 09-10)
  • Tyler Beskorowany - Team Black got outplayed heavily in the scrimmage, but won 1-0 anyways. The win was due to the superb goalie play of Beskorowany and Campbell. Beskorowany knows that he is really in a bind here to make the roster.
  • Mathieu Tousignant - Back in the game after injury last year, playing physically and getting on Cam Barker's nerves in the scrimmage. Back to his standard modus operandi.
  • Tomas Vincour - Seemed to be gliding a bit in the scrimmage. Didn't put up much fight when shutdown by Oleksiak and got his pocket picked easily by Wathier due to playing too casually

Here's the roster breakdown:
Team White | Team Black
|
Forwards | Forwards
9 Smith, Austin | 7 Sceviour, Colton
10 Fyten, Austin | 11 Carroll, Andrew
13 Vause, Taylor | 16 King, Tristan
15 Glennie, Scott | 17 Vincour, Tomas
19 Petersen, Toby | 20 Eakin, Cody
23 Morin, Travis | 28 Smith, Reilly
25 Fraser, Matt | 29 Chiasson, Alex
26 Hedden, Mike | 31 Cepis, Jacob
27 Roussel, Antoine | 34 Gazdic, Luke
38 Wathier, Francis | 40 Tousignant, Mathieu
39 Howes, Scott |
|
Defense | Defense
2 Hill, Jordan | 3 Ryder, John
4 Dillon, Brenden | 5 Sloan, Tyler
6 Oleksiak, Jamie | 12 Nemeth, Patrik
8 Benn, Jordie | 14 Labrie, Hubert
21 Case, Matt | 18 Fortunus, Maxime
22 Barker, Cam | 24 Coyle, Jace
|
Goalies | Goalies
30 Robinson, Josh | 1 Jack Campbell
41 Nilstorp, Cristopher | 32 Tyler Beskorowany

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