At age 17, it should be expected for a young player to be over-whelmed at times in his first NHL conditioning camp. That has been the case with 2009 1st round pick Simon Depres.
He shown some glimpses of why the Penguins drafted him with the 30th overall pick and other times has shown that he has a ways to go in his development.
In the most important testing drill today for defensemen, Despres was the top performer.
The drill was clearly for defensemen as the players would skate full speed (forwards) up to a cone and pivot backwards around the cone.
They were timed until they reached their starting point, after they went around the cone.
The top three performers in this drill were Simon Despres (5.222), Carl Sneep (5.265) and Alex Grant (5.348)
Despres had times of 5.222 and 5.244. On drills that matter for defenseman he performed very well today.
Over the course of the 6-8 testing drills, Carl Sneep was the top defenseman. He has great footwork and gets a great jump when he begins skating backwards.
Sneep has had a strong camp and had one of the top scores for defenseman who started backwards then turned forwards at the blueline (5.116)
A few comparisons in the same drill; Brian Strait (5.51) and Alex Grant (5.427)
2009, 5th round pick Alex Velischek also performed well in this drill (5.165).