BOSTON BRUINS GENERAL MANAGER PETER CHIARELLI
On the amount of fans in Wilmington and the future of camps there…
The crowds here were great and I think I was talking to somebody the other day that – I don’t think they were this big even in Tyler’s [Seguin] year like, consistently. So that was great to see. No update as to here – we’re under contract here for a period of time and I don’t have any update there.
On if he signed anyone today…
No.
On his overall impression of the camp and the crop of players…
Generally speaking, bigger and faster. And, so – generally speaking, positive. The younger crew, this year’s draft I was happy with. You very rarely come away from these camps with a negative feeling ‘cause it’s all potential and you always – you know you have to – there’s varying degrees of potential but – then a year later you sift through the players and maybe seventy percent of them in your mind go to the next year, but it was fairly deep this year. Our guys – our big pick – the guys - the [Cody] Payne’s the [Colton] Hargrove’s the – got some big guys that can skate, so I was happy – those are the lower end guys I’m just – thematically I mean we’ve got some size and skaters. Like specifically this year’s draft – Malcolm [Subban] I thought acquitted himself very well – [Matt] Grzelcyk played well but these guys are three, four, five years away.
On if he changed his feelings on any players at camp…
No, not really. I call them the usual suspects – are progressing – and they’ll be – I said this the other day, just by where they are in their development and contractually, there’ll be guys that’ll challenge at our training camp. I think the [Ryan] Spooner’s or the [Jared] Knight’s are gonna challenge, obviously Dougie’s [Hamilton] gonna challenge. I don’t wanna exclude anyone but those are the guys – those are the usual suspects.
On draft picks going straight into camp and if it adds to the test for these players, having to come right in…
Well yeah probably a little bit if you had a couple weeks to decompress after a draft and you’re 18 years old you can probably kind of gather things. We have some young players and they’re just – it’s the new draft class they’re just younger. And that’s why when you look at this you have to look at it closely. And you’ve got your 18-year-olds – first drafts – and you’ve got your 23-year-olds, college free agents, and the Tommy Cross’s. So I mean you’re talking five years of development and growing and maturing, so to your question, the younger guys – the freshman draft class – yeah, I’m sure if they had two weeks to kinda sit home and soak things up and then come here it would be different but nothing wrong with baptism by fire.
On camp being unpredictable…
Well the guys, the [Ben] Sexton’s the [Tommy] Cross’s, the guys that have been here four or five years, I mean they look at the schedule and they know what to expect so this year going in, we didn’t want to disclose a lot on the schedule. Usually you have your testing which is a dreaded thing right away and then you got your team building, bonding – it’s a hard exercise, it’s a physical arduous exercise later on and they kinda prepare themselves around it so we just wanted to keep them off balance a little bit and not tell them. And ‘cause what happens is like – not ratting anyone out but Tom [Cross] or Ben [Sexton] or these guy say, ‘Okay here, pace yourself here, we got this coming up.’ And, so we just wanted a little different twist.
On the advantages and disadvantages of going the traditional route and playing hockey year-round versus playing other sports too…
That traditional progression – well, frankly if they come to camp in the condition that we expect them too, and we’ve got a fairly rigid kind of framework for their conditioning. Frankly I don’t care what they do in between because if they’re like – there’s a point where too much hockey is going to hurt your development so I’m not one of those guys that wants them playing all the time. But as far as actually the teams and the leagues, nothing’s really conventional – it’s case-by-case. I mean we saw players here – we’ve got players here that have been playing against world class competition for two, three, four years. We’ve got players here that have never seen the likes of the competition here, like just came out of tier-two juniors so we’re all over the map here. So you just have to go case-by-case how the kid, you know, reacts to certain things and, you know, there’s an element of scared straight as far as conditioning goes, but there’s also – you have to have an element of patience too with these kids so it’s case-by-case.
On any noticeable differences having moved the fitness testing this year…
Not really, and in fact we kind of abbreviated it a little bit because they were working really, really hard. Like this year, I don’t know if we jammed a little bit more stuff into the on-ice stuff or the team building “The Program,” the one out at the beach in Dorchester, that was a real strenuous five-six hours so in a short time they can lose some steam. So we kind of cut the run test short a little bit, but all the other stuff was good. But not anything different, like you could tell from the body fat test coming in, because we body-fatted them right away, that there’s going to be some issues here or there and those were the issues when we ended up doing the testing. But generally our guys were in good shape.
On whether his no-news stance has cut down on the number of calls he’s received regarding free agency…
Well what’s cut down here is you have no cell service. I’m afraid to walk outside, all the irons I had in the fire like 10 hours ago, I don’t know where they are. But, short answer, yes. The calls have been fewer and far between, but having said that, as I said yesterday, I’ve dabbled with a couple of things and I don’t anticipate anything but we’re dabbling a little bit.
On Dougie Hamilton’s progression, and how confident he is about making the team…
Well, you know, I don’t want to hand anyone a job at this point in July. But based on what I’ve seen this year and what I’ve seen this camp and how I project I think he’s going to be a top challenger for a spot. You know, he’s just got a lot of things that you like – the range, I really like the range and to have range you have to be able to skate, you have to be able to turn and for him with that size, he’s put on 11 pounds from last year and you wouldn’t even notice it, you notice it in his statue, but the way he moves you don’t notice it. So he’s on a real good progression line and development line and, you know, I expect him – he’s a real good player, a real good prospect, I’m excited that we have him in our group.
On exactly how much he weighs…
11-pounds heavier than last year. I don’t know exactly off the top of my head, my guess is about 205-06.
On Ryan Spooner’s development…
Have you talked to him yet? [Yes]. So you can see he’s maturing as a young man, so physically just by looking at him and his tests have shown that also. You’ve seen him play – very skilled through the neutral zone, very highly skilled kid, for him it’s about learning the professional game, learning the game without the puck, and with a lot of these kids that have either turned pro or are about to turn pro it’s about being mentally prepared for every game, every practice. So he has developed and progressed a lot in those – sort of the mental side of it and the physical side of it, and he’s going to have to – you know, I remember his first camp he was lights out and it was like we were turning our heads because he was so good, and next camp was okay and his years like, he’s been on three different teams, you know, so he’s got to – and he’s a terrific kid and a terrific player – so he’s got to learn consistency and learn the professional game and learn what he has to do on both sides of the puck. That’s a maturation – he’s got a real good skill set, real good skater, real good head, and he’s one of our top prospects but that’s what he’s got to go through now.
