EL SEGUNDO –– As the Kings prepared for a three-game sojourn in San Jose for the 2022 Rookie Faceoff tournament, there was at least one somewhat surprising presence and one discouraging absence on the practice ice.
Center Quinton Byfield was in the mix once again, despite the 2020 second overall draft pick’s participation in nearly half the Kings’ games last season. He was the most NHL-experienced player on the ice, and the most prominent along with Brandt Clarke, whom the Kings selected eighth overall last year.
“I think there’s a lot of room left to play harder, because of (Byfield’s) size and strength, he just doesn’t know it yet,” said Ontario Reign coach Marco Sturm, who ran the practice and coached Byfield with the Kings last season. “He will figure it out. It takes time and experience, but this year he should do it more than he did in the past, and I think he will.”
Sturm added that Byfield, 20, “looked like a man” among his less experienced and mostly more fresh-faced peers.
The remaining top-10 pick in the Kings’ prospect pool, 21-year-old center Alex Turcotte (No. 5 overall in 2019) was nowhere to be found, despite having been listed on the initial list of camp participants. Turcotte sustained two concussions last season, curbing his development and overshadowing his eight-game stint with the big club.
Sturm offered little in the way of a detailed update on Turcotte, saying only that his spirits were high but that the doctors were still evaluating his condition before giving an all-clear. Turcotte will not travel to San Jose for games against Colorado on Friday, Vegas on Saturday and San Jose on Monday.
“As of right now, he’s not cleared, that’s all that I know,” Sturm said. “We want him healthy. He’s been through a lot in the past so we want to take our time and when the doctor says he’s ready to go, then he is.”
Though two concussions, one during the regular season and one during the postseason, might be daunting to surmount, Turcotte isn’t the only Kings prospect to overcome injuries during his development period.
Forwards Rasmus Kupari and Gabe Vilardi, a pair of former first-rounders, were on the ice working with other veterans and goalie coach Bill Ranford on Thursday. But both had spent substantial time on the sidelines earlier in their careers. Kupari sustained a severe knee injury while competing for the Finnish junior national team and Vilardi went through a lengthy process to recover from back surgery and related complications early in his career.
Center Akil Thomas, who was on the ice with the rookie tournament group on Thursday, also confronted serious injury, most notably a double shoulder surgery ahead of last season. Thomas admitted that missing training camp and the first two months of the season presented mental and physical challenges. He shook them off, however, to finish with 11 points in his final 14 games last season and four goals in four playoff matches.
Thomas, whom Sturm said he expected to assume a leadership role in Ontario if he doesn’t make the Kings’ roster, said that he anticipated a similar path back to action for Turcotte.
“Hopefully it’s just a bump in the road. Everyone deals with injuries and whatnot. Obviously, his is taking a little longer than expected, but I’m sure he’ll be good to go sooner than later,” Thomas said. “He’ll take some time to find himself again, but I’m sure he will.”
Sturm said it was too early to tell if Turcotte would be available for the Kings’ training camp later this month.
One player who was already looking forward to training camp was Clarke, who lauded the caliber of opponents the Kings would face in San Jose and said he was seeking to make a strong impression in September in order to join the team full-time in October.
“My goal is to play on this team this year, be a contributor on this team this year, and in the next couple weeks I’m going to try and do the best I can to show that I can hang with these guys,” Clarke said.
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