Monday’s practice at Canadian Tire Centre once again featured some new fresh faces, with Stephen Halliday, Tyler Boucher, and Carter Yakemchuk being recalled from Belleville to participate. It also saw Lars Eller practice with his team for the first time since returning from Milan where he competed with Team Denmark.
“It was great, always have a good time putting on the Denmark jersey, and yeah, this was a new environment but the same old guys, and it was just a cool thing to check off your bucket list, been there done that,” said Eller in his first meeting with the media since leaving for Milan at the beginning of February.
“I think every time you get a little bit of change of scenery, something new, it can rejuvenate and spark something,” he added, noting that while he didn’t have much time to check out other events, he did enjoy exploring Milan with his teammates on their off days.
“But I do think we had a really good thing going here at the end before the break that we just need to catch up on again. So, some guys had some time off and some guys [have] been away playing, and now we’ve just got to come together again and be excited for this stretch coming up.”
After practice, Travis Green explained that, like their practice on Thursday, the call-ups were in town to help bolster their roster size for the practice as they await the return of their other Olympians.
That being said, Green said there “was a good chance” that Halliday would remain with the team as they prepare to get back to game action, and that the hour-long practice would also be useful to both Boucher and Yakemchuk from a skills development standpoint.
“Boucher’s been playing some good hockey, so [thought] we’d bring him up,” explained Green.
“Obviously, Yak’s a young guy that we’re keeping on an eye on, but also there’s benefits for him coming up and having a practice that is competitive that we can also use as a teaching moment for him as well in certain areas, because we do tape our practices and we can show him some things.”
