The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins kicked off their training camp for the 2020-21 season on Friday.
Day 1 came a little later than anticipated.
Camp was originally slated to begin on Jan. 25, but was delayed for five days due to COVID-19 concerns after the pre-camp round of testing.
Players quarantined for the last few days in hotels, then jumped right back on the ice Friday for the start of camp. Despite the circumstances over the last week, players and head coach JD Forrest said that the first day of practice had a good energy and pace to it.
"I thought the guys did a great job," Forrest told me. "It's not an easy situation coming in from doing nothing to what we're aiming for, as far as effort, pace, and overall work ethic. As far as for a first day, I couldn't be happier from what we saw on the ice today."
"I was kind of surprised," said veteran forward Jordan Nolan. "Guys have had about a week off now, haven't been doing too much, so to come in and work hard and be pretty uptempo today, I was pretty impressed for sure. Everyone had good energy."
"I thought it started out pretty quick right out of the gate," said defenseman Jon Lizotte, who is entering his second professional season with the Penguins. "I thought everybody had ants in their pants trying to get back at it, getting anxious to really start playing hockey again in a controlled fashion, rather than three-on-three summer ice like we had the last nine months. I think it was a pretty good first day back at it, considering our last kind of six days off."
While preparations get underway for the season opener, which for the Penguins is scheduled for Feb. 6 at home against the Binghamton Devils, it's not quite clear what the end goal is for this season yet.
The regular season schedule includes 32 games over 99 days, running through May 16. Beyond that? Nothing is official yet, but it's looking increasingly likely that the Calder Cup will not be awarded this season. Other possible plans include no postseason at all, or mini-tournaments within divisions to crown champions within each individual division, but no single league champion.
I asked Forrest what he's heard about a potential postseason.
"Quite honestly, I haven't had a lot of confirmed information on that," he said. "I'm waiting for somebody to say, 'This is exactly what we're doing.' There's been rumors here and there about what may happen and what might not. But we'll adjust, we've got plans for both avenues here."
Regardless of what happens this spring, it doesn't mean that the motivation during the season won't be there.
"If we don't have that Calder Cup, as far as I can tell and from the conversations I've had with players and staff, everyone is just so excited to just be playing hockey," Forrest said. "To just be back in the building, and be around the team. The motivation, the enthusiasm, everything is built in to this year. It's been pent up for so long, that I don't think that changes the output we get from guys. They understand the importance of the season as well, although shortened. We'll come up with our own carrot at the end there if we need to."
That carrot might just be getting more of Wilkes-Barre's young players ready for elevated roles or a jump to the NHL.
"The most important thing is trying to accelerate the development of our players," Forrest said. "We've got some young guys, we've surrounded them with some good leadership. To see where they're at at the starting point and then at the finish of the year is going to be real important. It's going to tell us a lot. So if we can maximize this shortened season, the shorter schedule and gear it toward development of every single player, at the end of the year we can take a look and say, 'This guy took steps, this guy took steps," then in my mind, that would be a successful season for us."
Whether the season ends with no postseason, a Calder Cup being awarded, or anything in between, the drive to win during the season will still be there.
"I don't think (the mindset) changes too much," Nolan said. "You always want to come in and compete, work hard. You play the same teams a number of times, you kind of develop a hate for them. I think there's still definitely going to be that compete, I guess no reward in the end. But the goal this season is to get better and get your game where it needs to be. But it's not just a development season, I think guys will still be competing against each other."
"I think with this shortened season, we have a lot of guys that just have stuff to prove that will push us along the way, including me," Lizotte said. "Everyone is trying to earn spots for next year, and you don't have a lot of time to prove it with the shortened season. Everyone's going to have a little bit of a chip on their shoulder, and that work ethic every day is probably going to help us in the shortened season."
MORE FROM DAY 1
• I asked Forrest for an update on Sam Miletic, who participated in Pittsburgh's training camp but didn't skate in the final three days, and again wasn't on the ice for Day 1 of Wilkes-Barre's camp.
"He's day-to-day," Forrest said. "I'm not exactly sure. It's a medical issue that he's dealing with, so I can't really answer that in full. But he's okay. He's just got to go through some steps to get back on the ice, that's all."
• Wilkes-Barre added a couple players to the roster today: Forward Felix Robert, who was already on an AHL contract, was recalled from Wheeling. Nailers forward Michael Joly and defenseman Dylan MacPhearson signed professional tryout contracts with Wilkes-Barre (which unlike PTOs at the NHL level, actually allow a player to play regular-season games). Goaltender Brett Brochu, an 18-year-old undrafted free agent goalie, was signed to an amateur tryout contract out of the London Knights while the OHL season is delayed. Last season Brochu posted a 32-6-0 record (no, that's not a typo), setting the OHL record for wins by a 16- or 17-year old rookie goaltender. He led the OHL with a 2.40 goals-against average and ranked No. 2 with a .919 save percentage. To my knowledge, he's unrelated to former Penguins one-hit wonder goaltender Martin Brochu, who played part of one game for Pittsburgh in the 2003-04 season.
• This was Forrest's first day of a training camp as a head coach. After serving as Wilkes-Barre's assistant coach for the last four seasons, he was promoted to head coach after Mike Vellucci left to take the assistant coaching job in Pittsburgh.
"It's been a lot of waiting to get started, not just for me but for everybody," Forrest said. " But now I'm able to be out there and implement some of the things that I want to implement, and have a style of practice that I like to have. It's nice to be able to do that. You learn from it, get feedback from the players, feedback from my other staff as far as what we want to keep. It's a good feeling to be running the ship here."
• Wilkes-Barre's lone assistant coach is former Penguins forward Kevin Porter, with Pittsburgh player development coach and former Wilkes-Barre captain Tom Kostopoulos helping out.
Porter, 34, played for Wilkes-Barre and Pittsburgh in the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons, playing just enough games (41) in the 2015-16 season to get his name on the Stanley Cup. After spending the last three seasons as the captain of the Rochester Americans, the AHL affiliate of the Sabres, Porter is making the transition to a role in coaching.
"He's someone really familiar with this organization," Forrest said of Porter. "I coached him my first season here. He was really helpful to me, as a player who had been around, to a first-year assistant coach working on the penalty kill and everything, I asked him a lot of questions and I really liked his input. I think he's going to do a great job. He has a wealth of experience playing. With all of the meetings that we've had between his hiring and now, he's already been a real good help and another perspective. He's fresh off of playing, so he knows what these guys are going through on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes he gives me insight that I might have overlooked."
