It’s every junior hockey fan's favourite time of year: the 2024 CHL/NHL Top Prospects game presented by Kubota has finally arrived.
All invited players arrived in Moncton, N.B. last Sunday and were on the ice together the next day trying to gain chemistry with their new teammates.
One of those players is Oakville’s own Luke Misa of the Mississauga Steelheads, Misa has shined this season scoring 18 goals, and 39 assists, for a total of 57 points in 43 games.
"It’s been awesome getting to know a lot of these guys," said Misa. "We’ve been spending a lot of time in the hotel bonding as a team…We’re all looking forward to playing in the game [on Wednesday.]"
On Tuesday, all players invited took part in on-ice and off-ice testing.
Off-ice testing was done with just the players and evaluators with no media able to watch but the on-ice testing was open to media members.
The off-ice testing consisted of several dry-land drills such as squat jumps, and pull-ups. The on-ice testing saw the players show their skating and puck-handling abilities.
Drill one was a 30-meter spring skating forward. Misa finished the drill with a time of 4.248 seconds which was 0.382 seconds behind Julias Miettenen who finished number one in the drill
Drill two saw the players sprint backward for 30 meters. Misa finished the drill with a time of 5.7 seconds which was over a second slower than Zayne Perekh of the Saginaw Spirit who finished the drill in first place.
Drills three and four were identical to the previous two but now players were given a puck that they needed to control.
Misa kept control on both drills and clocked in the forward skate at 4.387 seconds which nearly got him into the top five players in the drill and for the backward skating, Misa recorded a time of 5.37 seconds.
The next two drills saw Misa thrive: the drills were all about edgework, with the players needed to weave in and out of poles that were set on the ice.
Misa performed great in the first edgework drill as he finished fifth out of all players invited to the prospects game with a time of 10.801 seconds.
For their next drill, the players needed to do the same thing but with a puck. Misa wowed everyone by doing the drill in 10.968 seconds, which was second amongst all players.
The final two on-ice drills were the toughest ones by far. Players needed to show their transition abilities and had to switch between skating forwards and backwards very quickly.
Many players had difficulty with the drill, including Misa who called the drill the "toughest" out of all the drills.
Although this was seen as hard, Misa performed great in the final two drills. He nearly cracked the top five in the drill without the puck and finished in fourth place in the drill which required him to maintain control of the puck.
That ended the day for Misa and all of the Top Prospects.
For Luke, he performed well. He showed off to everyone what he's good at and the things he needs to improve on. He's a great skater who has great edgework and can keep control of the puck in key situations like in transition.
What he needs to work on is his backward skating which will improve over time if he works at it.
Misa and the rest of the prospects now prepare for Wednesday (today) when they play in the Top Prospects Game.