Finally watched the 4-on-4 tournament. Some thoughts:
- Stenlund was so far ahead of the rest of these guys. Right at the very end of the last game with his team down a goal he lasered a beautiful tape-to-tape pass to the opposite wing and my jaw actually dropped. Then the guy he passed to gave it to Ryan Collins, who turned it over, as you'd expect. Anyway, Stenlund was mentally two or three steps ahead of everyone else on the ice at all times, and he showed a bit of skill with the puck as well. Also, he won a 1-on-3 board battle at one point. You can't take a ton away from these scrimmages as far as genuine evaluation, but "Stenlund is better than all these guys who are younger and mostly smaller than him" seems a fair conclusion to draw.
- Dubois seemed to be kind of taking it easy on the physical end of things, but what I saw from him that I liked was that he was skating hard in both directions. He's got a surprising amount of speed once he gets going.
- Carlsson is ready for the NHL.
- Kole Sherwood showed a pretty solid offensive game, but looked lost a couple times when he was in his own end.
- Jonathan Davidsson has a nice shot.
That's about all I noticed. Peeke, Thurkauf and Bemstrom didn't stand out to me, and everyone else was either a non-roster guy or a real longshot. If Cleveland needs defensive help I might like to see them sign that Scott Savage kid. Disappointed we didn't get to see Abramov or Texier, and Paul Bittner continues to be MIA (is he still having post-concussion problems?).