Mikhail Ilyin was the lone healthy prospect not on the ice for Thursday’s opening day of development camp, with travel issues delaying his arrival from Russia.
Ilyin, 20, signed his three-year entry-level contract in May after the end of his second full season in the KHL, a year in which he put up 30 points (seven games, 23 assists) in 64 games.
Director of player development Tom Kostopoulos called his arrival “exciting.”
“He’s really intelligent, really good hockey sense,” Kostopoulos told me of Ilyin. “Puck skills, good playmaker, decent scorer. I think we’ve got to keep pushing him to play a bit faster, work on his skating. … But his hockey sense and intelligence is elite.”