When the host of prospects within the Flyers system reports to Voorhees for a six-day excursion of activities, on the ice and off it, it is meant to be nothing more than a learning experience.
"Teaching them to be pros," Flyers GM Ron Hextall said on Thursday. "They need to be ready to go. An education is truly what it’s meant to be.
"In our day, we used to show up to training camp, get our butt kicked and go home. Now is a time to give them an education."
This year, 34 prospects were in Development Camp, all for the learning experience. But as the years pass and the number of prospects with NHL potential and great expectations increases, so does the pressure of making the knee-jerk reaction of calling up a prospect to the big club.
The name of Ron Hextall’s game is patience, and no player is going to change that.
"How smart would I be if I made decisions in two weeks?" Hextall said. "It has to be the whole picture. There’s no real formula for decisions. Quite honestly, a lot of it’s got feel."
The perfect example in this case is the headliner of the group of 34, defenseman Ivan Provorov, who was highly-touted out of the draft last year as an NHL-ready player then. He returned to the Brandon Wheat Kings in the WHL and took home CHL Defenseman of the Year honors. Ask anyone around junior hockey and they’ll tell you that Provorov has played his last game in Brandon.
But…
"Any player can be the best player in junior hockey," Hextall said. "There’s always something to gain or learn. What is too good for a league?"
So no prospect, not even one as gifted and bearing such high expectations as Provorov, is guaranteed anything. It must be earned.
For Hextall, the goal of camp is to give prospects both the learning experience and the understanding of an offseason regimen. There is no set time frame for fundamental improvement or strength and conditioning during a season.
"All these kids have to get bigger," Hextall said. "You have to gain weight and strength but keep your agility and speed. The right kind of weight takes time.
"It’s hard to change something or focus on a weakness when you’re in a season. We want them to take some fundamentals away to look at so by the time the season comes it’s second nature."
As more and more prospects with bright futures come in — and believe me, it shows when you see their raw abilities in drills — the development process, particularly against competition, is the reason Hextall and the Flyers are showing due diligence in ensuring prospects are ready.
But even then, it certainly is easy to get excited. And Ron Hextall and the Flyers are indeed excited, just not quick to act on that excitement for a finely-polished finished product.
And when that time comes, hopefully, it will have been worth the wait.
Kevin Durso is an editor for Sports Talk Philly. Follow him on Twitter @Kevin_Durso.
