Golden Knights welcome draft class to development camp

Golden Knights center Matyas Sapovaliv, fresh off being the franchise’s first draft pick Friday in Montreal, received a rude awakening when he arrived for his first development camp.

“It was actually weird,” Sapovaliv said Monday. “The weather punched me in my face.”

The Las Vegas heat is one of many things the Knights’ prospects are adjusting to as they take part this week in the team’s first in-person development camp since 2019. It’s been an especially fast transition for the newest draft picks, who are quickly learning what it takes to be a professional days after being selected.

“This is first time when coaches and everybody here in Vegas see me,” Sapovaliv said. “I think it’s an important first week here.”

The 2022 draft class is getting an experience the previous two classes didn’t immediately get. Players get to meet coaches, staff and fellow prospects in person after COVID-19 kept the club from having its summer camp for two years.

The Knights did put together a virtual program last season, featuring an online cooking class, a session on sleep, a question-and-answer session with defensemen Nic Hague and Zach Whitecloud and more. The prospects will do many of the same things this week at City National Arena.

On Monday, along with on-ice practices with the 48 attendees split into two teams, the group heard from the Knights’ security team, learned about talking to the media and discussed social media. They will hear from Whitecloud and right wing Keegan Kolesar later in the week and prepare and serve meals for vulnerable Nevadans through Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada on Wednesday.

“It’s incredible,” Knights director of player development Wil Nichol said. “You can feel the excitement from the kids. It almost feels like the first year.”

That’s beneficial for the six-person draft class, led by Sapovaliv, picked in the second round (48th overall) Friday. The others are center Jordan Gustafson (third round), goaltender Cameron Whitehead (fourth), center Patrick Guay (fifth), right wing Ben Hemmerling (sixth) and defenseman Abram Wiebe (seventh).

They’re getting up to speed fast and getting to know one another. Sapovaliv is learning the ropes from 2021 fourth-round pick Jakub Brabenec, whom he has played with internationally for the Czech Republic.

Gustafson and Hemmerling are taking in the experience together because they grew up playing spring hockey with each other in Alberta. Gustafson kept watching the draft after he was picked and contacted Hemmerling when he saw they were both Knights.

Guay also has players to lean on because Brabenec and 2020 third-round pick Lukas Cormier were his teammates last season with the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League’s Charlottetown Islanders.

The Knights are hoping to impart lessons to the players they can take with them wherever they play next season. Most of the 2022 draft class will return to junior hockey. And they’ll do so with a new appreciation of what their potential future home really is like.

“It’s hot,” Gustafson said. “A lot hotter than Edmonton, than Ardrossan (Alberta), where I’m from. We have winter for seven months of the year so it’s a little bit different weather down here.”

Contact Ben Gotz at bgotz@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BenSGotz on Twitter.