TheDaysOf 04
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Al Murray on Schmidt:
"I think you need (right shot defensemen) and they’re tougher to find since a lot of guys tend to shoot left, Europeans shoot left, a lot of the Canadians shoot left. Seems to make more Americans shoot right. We think we’ve built up a decent pool of right shot defensemen coming up ... and then we were able to add Roman Schmidt. So we’ve got 5 (including Powell, Cozier, Thompson, and Perbix) right shot d coming that we think are pretty good. We have a decent group of right shot d on our nhl team right now with Rutta, and Cernak, and Footer is taking steps all the time so we’re hopeful we’ve got some guys there and a couple guys on the American league team."
"Roman’s one of those guys we talk about, he’s on the all-warm up team because as soon as his team comes out for warm ups, here’s a 6’5” guy that wheels around on the ice very easy and that’s a guy who catches your eye. You want him coming off the bus first so the other team takes notice of him."
"Roman will remind people of Brandon Carlo at the same age. He’s big, mobile, doesn’t put up a lot of points, but makes a good pass. Doesn’t punish people shift after shift, but it’s very tough to get by him because he’s got good feet and he angles well and has good gap control. Brandon Carlo took a little while and then become a real good top 4 defenseman for the Boston Bruins. Roman was going to go to college, and then changed his mind. He’s going to go to Kitchener in the OHL. We’ve talked to the coach/gm there. Asked him a couple weeks ago, who does he remind you of? He goes 'he kinda reminds me of Brandon Carlo.' So everybody sees similar attributes. He believes there's more offense in Roman, than maybe even Roman thinks there is. In Kitchener he’s going to get a real good opportunity to get top 4 minutes for the next couple years, play power play situations, kill penalties which is a natural thing for him to do, and get a real good chance to develop. And because he’s in major junior, we’ll get to bring him to our prospects tournament. We’ll get to have our skating and strength people and skills people work with him all year long through the Kitchener organization. So when guys go major junior it does give you more access to them than if they went college. So that’s a good thing for us we feel."
Lightning amateur scout John Burkhardt:"(He should) keep it simple, but be aggressive. Roman’s skating should allow him to really gap up tight on people. Because he’s as big as a house, when the other teams coming out of their zone and they take a look up ice at where they’re gonna move the puck, if Roman’s on his guy and up tight, he won’t have a lot to do because he’ll have to go down the other side of the ice. Every time you throw the puck over there it will just be knocked off the guys stick and back the other way. Any time a guy comes down the wall, take him early in the zone. Don’t let him get down the wall and get into the zone. You’ve got the speed and you’ve got the agility. Take him early and end the rush, move it back out of the zone, and you’re not going to spend a lot of time in your own end. So keep it simple with the puck movement, develop your skill level as much you can. He has a decent level of hockey sense. Play within your limitations and play to your strength and I think Roman is smart enough to know that. You watch him play and I think he does that very well. He complimented probably the most skilled player on the US defense last year, Behrens. They were a partnership in the number of games I saw them. Behrens was a 5'10" puck moving d and Roman was the big safety net there hanging out and taking care of a lot of the defensive responsibilities. Keep some guys away from the front of the net so the goalie could see the puck. Played really well to what his strengths are."
"Being right here next to the Plymouth rink I was able to see those guys a lot this year. Actually the last few years. Roman’s a big guy. He’s a good skating defenseman. That’s one of the good things about him. He was good at moving pucks and we think he’s going to keep getting better at that."
"He has a little more of a simplistic game. He likes to move the puck, he’s going to skate it out of the defensive zone which is good. He passes the puck hard, he handles the puck really well. I think next year he’s going to Kitchener and I think he’s going to get an opportunity to jump into a power play situation and be able to develop his offensive skills also there."
"Especially with his size, it takes a while for these guys to grow into their bodies. They might grow tall pretty quick but its just the strength that they get over the next couple years that is going to make it hard for guys to play against this kid. He’ll definitely play bodies on people. He’ll lean into guys, but he's definitely more of a defensive positioning, smart defender. Uses his long stick well. Uses his feet really well. He’s a good skater. His mom was an Olympic figure skater so as far as skating coaches go, his skating is definitely one of his assets."
"You look at our lineup the last couple years in the Stanley cup finals and we had big defenseman that could all skate. So that’s a big asset that he brings to us. With him, he’s going to gain some strength to his body and he’ll be a little more physical. You’re going to gain a little more confidence with that. In the USHL (with the NTDP), you’re playing college teams... but he was good against the college guys this year. These kids are 3-5 years older than he is. They’re a little bit stronger. They’ve been in the weight room a little bit longer, but he did just fine. He was out there pushing around some of these older kids. His skating was good. I thought he played really well defensively. He’s got a long stick and good feet, he was hard to beat, so he just kind of kept his game simple and moved puck to the forwards which is a good thing for us, especially with some of the guys we have up front."
"Being at the National Program, there’s a lot of good defensemen you’re with … so there’s only so much time on the power play to see the ice from the back end and gain some points on the power play to gain so more confidence that way. So now heading up to Kitchener, … our guys have talked to the coaches up there, and we think he’ll be fitting into their top 4 and has a shot at being on one of the power plays for them. I think that will be a good training thing for him. He’ll be able to gain some confidence when handling the puck and make some plays. It’s good to do it at the junior level before he comes to the pro side."
