Making Waves at Lake Placid

Reports from National Junior Evaluation Camp in Lake Placid indicate that coach John Hynes will face some difficult decisions when he pares down the 45-man roster. Several of the Terriers at the camp have been among the standouts. In Monday’s second intrasquad game, won by the White team, 4-3, both Brian Strait (White) and Kevin Shattenkirk (Blue) had assists when rebounds of their slapshots were converted by teammates. On Tuesday, Shattenkirk’s second period slapper gave USA Blue a 3-2 lead over Finland in a game that USA won 5-4, with Luke Popko assisting on the game-winner. Colin Wilson (pictured) had a pair of goals and and an assist during the first four days of play.

Several bloggers are providing reports on the camp and exhibition games, including NHL.com’s Shawn Roarke, USA Hockey’s Chris Peters, and Elliott Olshansky, CSTV’s Rink Rat. Olshanky (excerpts below) reports a highlight-video hit by Colin Wilson and voices confidence that incoming freshman Shattenkirk will make the final roster. With Strait also impressing at camp, Hynes very well might have a BU pairing on the Junior National Team blueline.

Olshansky on USA Blue-Finland, 8-7-07:

A couple of future BU Terriers also impressed me in the first period. Colin Wilson had a nice hit to knock a Finnish player off the puck, and wound up hitting him so hard that Wilson's own helmet came off. For a moment, it looked like Wilson was ready to go "old time hockey" and keep playing, but then thought better of it and headed for the bench. Kevin Shattenkirk looks as good as I've been hearing about, and had a really nice move with the puck late in the period to elude a Finnish defender and create a U.S. scoring chance.

I don't know who's going to be the seventh defenseman for BU this year, but whomever it is will be quite annoyed that BU isn't playing a holiday tournament this year. That's one game less that Kevin Shattenkirk's WJC-imposed absence will open up a spot in the lineup. Shattenkirk is one of the three most impressive players on the ice for the U.S. along with Mike Carman and Pat Kane, and you can definitely plan on him being part of this team.

Olshansky on USA White-Sweden, 8-7-07:

BU's Brian Strait has looked pretty solid for the U.S., playing good positional defense and shutting down a couple of would-be scoring opportunities for the Swedes.

Hockey photographer par excellence Melissa Wade has posted on USCHO a pictorial look at the camp (several groups of photos) with several Terriers included.