Wild development camp roster; 2 upcoming scrimmages open to the public

First and foremost, Bryan Murray, the longtime NHL coach and GM for Washington, Detroit, Florida, Anaheim and Ottawa, needs your well wishes and prayers. Bryan was diagnosed with cancer prior to the draft and will begin treatment this week. He's one of the great, funny guys in this sport, has given a ton to it and has been beyond instrumental to my career, teaching me the ins and outs of the game on and off the ice very early in my career when I covered the Panthers for the Sun-Sentinel. I used to actually ghost-write his column that would appear weekly in our paper, and man, it was a learning experience.

Bryan's long been a mentor to his nephew, Buffalo Sabres GM Tim Murray, and of course Wild GM Chuck Fletcher and assistant GM Brent Flahr.

Fletcher was Bryan's assistant GM in Florida and Anaheim and Bryan pulled Flahr out of the ticket sales office in Florida, making him a scout, then bringing him to Anaheim before taking him to Ottawa as director of hockey ops.

I wish Bryan all the best. He'll battle through this like the tough cookie he is. My best to his wife, children, brothers, sisters, extended family and long list of pals.

Onward, if you didn't see the previous blog on Cody Almond's upcoming return to the Wild and possibly next year's team, check that out.

But the Wild's development camp roster and schedule was announced this morning.

Camp will take place Wednesday (July 9) to Monday (July 14) and will feature two scrimmages that are free and open to the public. The first scrimmage is Friday (July 11) at 2 p.m. at Braemar Arena in Edina and the second scrimmage is Monday (July 14) at 6:30 p.m. at Xcel Energy Center.

Some roster hopefuls for next season that will take part in the camp include Christian Folin, Matt Dumba, Michael Keranen, Kurtis Gabriel and Gustav Olofsson. Some top draft picks include Alex Tuch, Louie Belpedio, Mario Lucia, Zack Phillips and Raphael Bussieres. Some junior free-agent pickups that will take part are Guillaume Gelinas, Brady Brassart and Zach Mitchell. The only prospect I see missing is Pontus Sjalin, who was drafted last month. He was injured while training over the weekend. It's not said to be serious, but he would not be able to participate this week. Tyler Graovac has been to too many prospect camps. With the CBA now, a player is only eligible to come to three development camps (however, a player can request to come to additional ones).

Some interesting tryouts:

Tyler Sheehy (no relation to agent Neil Sheehy) – Burnsville kid that put up quality numbers this year in Waterloo (USHL).

Alex Iafallo – Future college free agent to watch. Solid freshman year for Duluth.

Reid Gardiner – Was highly ranked early in the season by Central Scouting but was not drafted.

Hunter Warner – Eden Prairie kid that played in the USHL last year. Big tough kid but raw.

Gopher Vinni Lettieri (Lou Nanne's grandson) will also be in the house, as will Gophers backup goalie Michael Shibrowski.

2014 MINNESOTA WILD DEVELOPMENT CAMP NUMERICAL ROSTER

FORWARDS (26) HT WT SHOOTS BORN BIRTHPLACE 2013-14 TEAM LGE GP G A PTS PIM ACQ

34 Chase Lang 6-1 182 Right 9/13/96 Nanaimo, British Columbia Calgary WHL 68 10 15 25 52 EN/14
36 Michael Keranen 6-1 176 Left 1/4/90 Stockholm, Sweden Ilves Tampere Finland 52 17 35 52 47 FA/14
40 Tyler Sheehy 5-10 185 Right 11/20/95 Burnsville, Minnesota Waterloo USHL 49 21 28 49 4 INVITEE
41 Alex Iafallo 6-0 176 Left 12/21/93 Eden, New York U. Minn. Duluth NCHC 36 11 11 22 10 INVITEE
43 Mario Lucia 6-3 195 Left 8/25/93 Fairbanks, Alaska Notre Dame CCHA 40 16 15 31 12 EN/11
47 Zack Mitchell 6-0 184 Right 1/7/93 Caledon, Ontario Guelph OHL 67 31 52 83 40 FA/14
48 Christoph Bertschy 5-10 189 Right 4/5/94 Friburg, Switzerland SC Bern Swiss 37 6 8 14 10 EN/12
49 Raphael Bussieres 6-1 198 Left 11/5/93 Longueuil, Quebec Iowa AHL 61 5 14 19 51 EN/12
50 Vinni Lettieri 5-9 170 Right 2/6/95 Excelsior, Minnesota U. Minnesota Big 10 37 2 6 8 8 INVITEE
51 Reid Gardiner 5-11 185 Right 1/19/96 Humboldt, Saskatchewan Prince Albert WHL 70 22 22 44 39 INVITEE
52 Alex Tuch 6-3.5 218 Right 5/10/96 Baldwinsville, New York USNTDP USHL 26 13 19 32 36 EN/14
57 Adam Gilmour 6-4 192 Right 1/29/94 Albany, New York Boston College HE 39 7 12 19 10 EN/12
59 Eric Scheid 5-9 163 Left 5/5/92 Coon Rapids, Minnesota Penn State Big 10 36 11 9 20 10 INVITEE
61 Zack Phillips 6-0 194 Right 10/28/92 Fredericton, New Brunswick Iowa AHL 76 12 21 33 16 EN/11
62 Avery Peterson 6-3 200 Left 6/20/95 Grand Rapids, Minnesota Grand Rapids H.S. 27 37 30 67 8 EN/13
63 Kurtis Gabriel 6-4 214 Right 4/20/93 New Market, Ontario Owen Sound OHL 60 16 35 51 99 EN/13
65 Andrew Ryan 6-3 202 Left 1/15/94 St. John's Newfoundland Halifax QMJHL 56 27 28 55 52 INVITEE
70 Adam Phillips 6-0 195 Right 8/11/90 Farmington Hills, Michigan UMass- Amherst HE 34 6 9 15 8 INVITEE
71 Brooks Bertsch 5-11 185 Right 5/10/90 Dubuque, Iowa St. Cloud State NCHC 36 3 3 6 8 INVITEE
73 Tanner Kero 5-11 175 Left 7/24/92 Hancock, Michigan Michigan Tech WCHA 40 15 10 25 16 INVITEE
76 Jessey Astles 6-2 205 Left 6/4/93 Coquitlam, British Columbia Tri-City WHL 50 11 9 20 67 INVITEE
78 Reid Duke 6-0 189 Right 1/28/96 Calgary, Alberta Lethbridge WHL 62 15 25 40 91 EN/14
79 Grant Opperman 6-0 185 Right 11/15/93 Wayzata, Minnesota Dartmouth ECAC 31 8 11 19 26 INVITEE
82 Olivier Archambault 6-0 190 Left 2/16/93 Le Gardeur, Quebec Quebec QMJHL 38 19 27 46 37 INVITEE
83 Brady Brassart 6-2 196 Right 6/15/93 Vernon, British Columbia Calgary WHL 70 35 50 85 94 FA/14
96 Pavel Jenys 6-2 198 Left 4/2/96 Brno, Czech Republic Brno Czech 29 2 0 2 4 EN/14