The exodus of Sarnia Sting players to NHL training camps is about to pick up speed.
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The exodus of Sarnia Sting players to NHL training camps is about to pick up speed.
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The Sting began their Ontario Hockey League pre-season schedule Friday in London with forwards Ty Voit and Max Namestnikov already away at NHL camps – Voit in Toronto and Namestnikov in Vancouver.
Eight teammates will follow them out the door in the next few days.
Forwards Nolan Burke (Buffalo), Theo Hill (St. Louis), Sandis Vilmanis (Florida) and Marcus Limpar Lantz (Detroit), defensemen Chandler Romeo (Ottawa), Ethan Ritchie (Buffalo) and Ryan Mast (Boston), and goalie Ben Gaudreau (San Jose) are also headed to NHL prospect tournaments and training camps.
Voit, 19, visited Toronto a few times this summer to train. He was there in July for the Maple Leafs’ development camp.
“Camp in the summer was definitely a good experience,” said the 2021 NHL fifth-round draft pick. “There were some really good guys there. I got to pick some stuff off of them and just kind of work towards this year.”
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He worked on his defense at the development camp.
“I wanted to make my game a little bit more complete coming into this year,” he said, “so some defensive stuff I’ve really been working on, just being active with my stick and then also checking the body first and then having my stick come in on their stick with it, just little stuff like that.”
The Maple Leafs encourage prospects to watch and learn from their fellow campers.
“Many people were saying build off each other, learn off each other, steal stuff from each other,” Voit said. “If you see something good, take it, use it.
“I think everyone through camp was doing that off everyone, so it was a very productive camp for a lot of guys.”
Voit, Hill and Limpar Lantz are scheduled to play in the NHL Prospect Tournament that starts Thursday in Traverse City, Mich. Training camps will follow.
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“I want to keep getting better throughout these camps,” Voit said. “I want to keep coming in and seeing improvements on myself. I want to see myself taking more control of my game.”
Hill scored the Sting’s lone goal Friday in a 3-1 loss to the Knights before 7,752 fans at Budweiser Gardens.
Rookie goalie Dylan Grover started in the Sting’s net and stopped nine of 10 shots. He was replaced midway through the second period by newly signed Nick Surzycia, who also stopped nine of 10.
The teams will face off again at 7:05 pm Saturday at Progressive Auto Sales Arena.
Landon Sim and Bryce Montgomery scored for the Knights before Easton Cowan added an empty-netter. Reigning OHL goalie of the year Brett Brochu made 18 saves.
The Sting don’t play again until their home-and-home exhibition series with the Spitfires on Thursday, Sept. 22, in Windsor and Saturday, Sept. 24, in Sarnia.
This coming week with no games will be a good chance for the rookies to learn, general manager Dylan Seca said.
“It’s a great week to just kind of kick back and learn the systems and go through everything slowly,” he said. “And then it allows us to then get everyone back from camp and ramp up for two exhibition games against Windsor and be ready to roll.”
The Sting expects to have a full roster for the final two pre-season tilts.
“At this point, our expectation is that we should have everybody back and ready to go for those Windsor games,” Seca said.