Director of Player Development Lee Stempniak and his staff use this camp to get to know these players on a deeper level, strengthen each prospect’s skills on the ice, and support these promising athletes throughout their careers.
“The new draft picks, you get to see how they interact,” Stempniak shared. “For us as a development staff, you get to know them on a personal level, have a couple meals with them, talk to them which helps build that relationship to work with them moving forward.
“On the ice we use it as an opportunity to teach them a lot of stuff … it’s a time where we can build our vocabulary (with them),” Stempniak continued. “Do more hands-on teaching. There’s a huge piece off the ice where we’re teaching about being a pro but also life skills. They’re young guys, what (being a professional athlete) entails.”
For Utah’s development staff, camp is the only time they can be on the ice teaching all of their prospects. College hockey limits on-ice instruction during the season. As a result, Stempniak and his staff take advantage of this opportunity. To maximize their ice time, players were split by position for practices. This allowed forwards, defensemen, and goaltenders to work on specific parts of their game during these on-ice sessions.
“You see how many coaches are on the ice,” Cole Beaudoin reflected. “They’re trying to give you tips and tricks so that when it comes time for games or comes time for (training) camp, that you can use those (tips). Sometimes it might not look as pretty as you think, but it’s trying new things so that you get better and (are) improving because that’s the most important thing.”
Perhaps the most significant part of the camp is off the ice. Development Camp is the perfect avenue to start building a strong culture within the prospect pool that matches the brotherhood found with the NHL roster.
“A big thing for us as a group is bonding them together,” Stempniak explained. “It’s team building. It’s what it means to play for Utah. It’s a continuation right from the NHL team. We’re building something special here and there’s a trickle-down effect, and what that means and sort of get them to buy into that and bond together.”
The brotherhood aspect has an impact. As one of the newest members of the organization, 2025 second round pick Max Pšenička didn’t know many of his counterparts heading into camp. However, leaving Utah was a different story.
“Everyone’s (already) such a good friend (now as) I leave,” Pšenička smiled. “It’s been a lot of fun. We had a lot of team building, a lot of presentations on team building and having a brotherhood so it was a lot of fun with these guys here.”
Whether it’s a player’s first time at camp or third, each year Utah’s future players improve on the ice and grow off the ice to continue building a strong culture at every level of the organization.
