Nashville Predators Development Camp Practice Report, Day 4

The Predators had their final practice of development camp before Friday’s game.

Egor Surin shoots at goalie Jack Ivankovic at Nashville Predators development camp. / Nashville Predators

NASHVILLE — The fourth day of Nashville Predators development camp took place Thursday morning with the penultimate day of camp.

Thursday’s practice was the final organized practice of the camp before Friday’s Future Stars Game, where the Predators will split the roster into two teams and watch their young guys go at it.

The practice Thursday was divided up into defenseman and forwards, with the defenseman practicing the first half of the time and the forward taking the ice for the back half of practice.

Here is a practice report from Thursday’s practice.

• Practice began with the defenseman warming up, going through skating and mobility drills. The guys practiced various patterns of skating, including skating backwards.
• The defenseman’s first drill was dividing up into pairs with one player trying to steal the puck from the other.
• The next drill was one where two players would pass to one another up the ice before one drove to the other end of the rink and shot at one of the goalies.
• Then, the defenseman ran a drill where a player stole the puck from someone on one end of the ice and passed it up to a teammate at the other end, running a give-and-go action before shooting at the goalies. The guy that originally stole the puck was the one that ended up taking the shot at the end of the rep. In addition to running an action, the point of it looked to be practicing driving hard into the offensive zone and winding up for a slap shot.
• The defensemen then ran a 2-on-2 drill where two guys acted as the defense trying to clear the puck out of the zone and the other two acted as the team in the offensive zone. Ultimately, the defensemen took the pucks away.
• The next drill, defensemen practiced wrist shots where a coach would pass the puck to a player driving into the offensive zone. The player immediately shot a wrister at one of the goalies.
• Then it was the forwards turn to hit the ice. Forwards started ice with warming up skating on the ice and routine mobility drills before getting to the bulk of their Thursday workload.
• The first drill the forwards did was a 1-on-2 drill where the player had to keep the puck from two other guys attacking. On the other end of the ice, goalies were practicing handling the puck from behind the net.
• Forwards then practiced stripping the puck away from a teammate before driving to the net and shooting at either Jack Ivankovic or Dmitri Borichev.
• In the next drill, forwards went 1-on-2 against attacking forwards where one would steal the puck and outlet pass to a forward that would shoot at one of the goalies.
• For the final drill, the roster split up into teams of three and ran 3-on-3s repeatedly for about 15 minutes. Each rep lasted about a minute or two before the next group went. One notable thing from this drill was the chemistry Ryker Lee had with No. 10 pick Wyatt Cullen. The two executed a perfect give-and-go that resulted in Cullen scoring in one of his reps.

The final day of development camp takes place tomorrow morning with the Future Stars Game. The game will be open to the public at the Ford Ice Center in Bellevue. The game is scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. CT Friday. 

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