Dev. Camp Scrimmage Recap – Team White 7, Team Black 1 + Glen Murray Quotes

Development Camp 2023 is in the books, Insiders!

Day 5 of development camp is the formal scrimmage day. Though not a three-period affair, the Kings played two, 25-minute halves in a Black vs. White scrimmage setting. Team White was the dominant force in this one, skating to a 7-1 victory over the course of the 50 minutes.

Unlike previous season, we saw the game played entirely at 5-on-5. Penalties assessed were played out as penalty shots as opposed to power-play settings and the clock was used in running time, meaning a hard 50 minutes as opposed to spot-time, outside of the final two minutes in each half. A good way to end the week, in a game setting.

Recapping the game that was, forward Ryan Conmy scored the first goal of the morning for Team White, as the sixth-round selection buried his first of two goals on the day. After he hit the post just seconds prior, Conmy worked down low with forward Samuel Helenius, wrapped the puck around the net on the backhand and buried at the near post.

Team Black answered back right around five minutes later through camp invitee Sean Tschigerl to knot the score at one. Forward Koehn Ziemmer started the play by transitioning the puck to Kenny Connors out of the defensive zone and eventually collected the primary assist as well, as he fed Tshigerl for the tap-in at the back post and a 1-1 score.

Team White scored twice more in the final six minutes of the first half to take a 3-1 lead into the break. First, forward Sam Alfano scored on a rebound off of a shot from forward Max Heim, with the pair of camp invitees combining to open the scoring. Forward Martin Chromiak also got in on the action with just over 60 seconds left on the clock, as he entered the offensive zone down the left wing, worked his way into the left-hand circle and snapped a shot past goaltender Erik Portillo off the rush for a 3-1 lead.

In the second half, the teams changed ends and swapped out goaltenders, though Team White was once again the offensive aggressor. Goaltender Hampton Slukynsky, a fourth-round pick in 2023, did not allow a goal in his 25 minutes during the second half, with a few solid saves on which he did not allow a rebound.

Forwards Chromiak and Conmy each tallied their second goals of the game with redirected efforts early in the second half, pushing the score to 5-1. Both goals were scored from just outside the crease, via a tip in front, with a heavy flow of traffic getting to that area for Team White.

Team White concluded the day with a pair of goals off of plays started by defenseman Brandt Clarke, bringing us to the 7-1 final. First, Clarke fed Heim for a tap-in goal at the back post off the rush. He then picked off a pass in the neutral zone, danced around a defender and though his first pass was deflected, forward Jack Hughes eventually worked the puck to Aatu Jamsen for the tap-in goal, the final tally of the morning.

Glen Murray Quotes
Sharing some comments from Glen Murray, the architect of development camp at the executive level. Murray is the organization’s Director of Player Development and ultimately runs these sorts of events with a focus on the younger players.

Will share his full audio here tomorrow, as well as all other staff members who spoke throughout the week, but some selects from his availability below. Note, these are mostly overall camp thoughts, with quotes on additional players to follow in stories throughout the next few weeks as we inventory all of the interviews we got!

On if he was pleased with the overall takeaways from the camp as a whole
Yeah, I think [we were pleased]. The forwards were working with Jarret and Mike, the D were with OD and Greeney and you don’t want to give them too much in four or five days. You try to work on a program we have, that we’ll go through we want to make sure that they understand the importance of these four different things that we’re working on this week. It could be wall play, it could be whatever we talked about, and they I think they get to grasp it, because we’re actually walking you through this. You have to be able to do this play, or these plays, to be on the bench for the LA Kings eventually.

On the importance of treating development camp as a teaching week, with an emphasis on patience
We try to have patience, we try to be patient to a certain extent. This is July 10 and some of these kids are so nervous to come in here and then you have players that have done this before, that have played in the NHL before, played in the minors with the Reign. So, patience is a big word we use, but we think that there are certain players that stick out no matter when you’re playing, no matter what time of the year.

On making evaluations of camp invitees who had a chance to make an impression over the five days
There always is, I think there are a few players that stuck out. They’ve had other teams probably call them but they picked us to come here for for these four days. We’re lucky that our scouts do a great job in convincing them that we have a pretty good development staff, they want to work with them. It’s not just that they want to improve their game on the ice, but it’s off the ice, it’s fundamentals. It’s not about systems, these five days, it’s all about helping them with their fundamentals.

On individual prospects he felt stood out over the course of the five days
Yeah, I think Frankie [Pinelli] and Alex [Laferriere], Chromiak I really liked, we all love Chromiak, he had a really good camp. For the first-year draft picks, Dvorak is a good, left-shot D, he’s very calm for a young guy. Our other picks, I thought they really did a good job. It’s hard to come in, you’re nervous and haven’t been to LA before and you see Drew Doughty walking around the locker room and stuff like that. They get a little nervous, but they once they get that out of their system and realize that they’re all here for a reason, whether they’re drafted or invited players, it gets a little bit better. It’s too bad it’s only four or five days but I think it was, overall a very good camp. You guys saw today, they all worked.

On how often the development team interacts with players between now and next season’s development camp
It all depends on what team. We had a few guest coaches in here this year and Jamesn’s head coach was here, it’s an open door from him. Absolutely an open door if Jarret or Mike want to go into Finland to work with him, doors are wide open. We can go in and go on the ice with him or whatever it may be. Some of the NCAA’s are tricky, depending on their schedules, depending on where they’re at and we understand that. We don’t push the envelope but we haven’t really had a lot of teams say not, that we can’t come in. We really have to look at the schedule and the problem with that is sometimes they go on a losing streak and we’re scheduled to come in and you know coaches are a little bit loony when they go on a losing streak, they don’t want to see one of us coming in to work with their players, our drafted player. It’s a juggling act.

Still a lot more to come from this week, Insiders! We’ve got a lot of interviews banked, a lot of recordings to share, that will come in the days and weeks to follow. Gotta spread out that content a bit. That’s all for today, but will share each staff interview in full audio form tomorrow for anyone interested in listening to the raw audio.