Every player at the National Hockey League level can shoot the puck. But not all shots are equal. Through two days of Vancouver Canucks training camp in Penticton, it’s easy to see how Daniel Sprong has scored 85 career NHL goals including 39 in the past two seasons, alone The guy can flat out shoot the puck. It looks different in its release. It sounds different off his stick. And more often than not, it seems to find the back of the net.
Sprong and the Canucks are hoping he puts that shot to good use this season.
But to use his best offensive trait the 27-year-old winger needs the puck. And to have the puck, Sprong can’t get stuck chasing the game or getting pinned in his own zone.
Right or wrong, a perception has followed Sprong wherever he’s gone that he’s simply a one dimensional player. From the hash marks down in the offensive zone, look out. He’s a legitimate scoring threat. Anywhere else on the ice, though, look away.
Sprong has heard the knock for far too long now. And he’s setting out with his sixth NHL franchise to prove people wrong and show the hockey world he can hold his own in the defensive zone.
“It’s a little frustrating,” Sprong said of the reputation that has followed him from Pittsburgh to Anaheim to Washington to Seattle and last season to Detroit. “There are times when I think ‘yeah, I can be a little better defensively’, but I also think that’s something that was stapled on me at a young age in my career and it’s just always kind of stuck around. Do I think it’s completely fair? No. But again, I do see where I can be better. I think that was one of the biggest things I talked with Rick about, is finally breaking that wall down and I’m close to finally being that player I know I can be and the organization believes I can be.”
Sprong is a man on a mission. Not only to shed the label of an offence only player, but he’s arrived at camp looking to earn an opportunity to play higher in the line-up. He has spent the first two days in Penticton on the right side on a line with Pius Suter in the middle and Arshdeep Bains on left wing. At some point either in camp or during the preseason, it’ll be worth watching to see if Sprong earns Rick Tocchet’s trust to play with either Elias Pettersson or JT Miller.
“Spronger is a great kid,” Tocchet, who was an assistant coach in Pittsburgh when Sprong was drafted by the Penguins and broke into the league as a teenager, said. “What’s he had? Seven coaches on seven different teams. So he probably has a lot of people in his head. He came into camp as one of the top shape guys. He’s got a hell of a shot and he can skate. Now we have to put the puzzle together and keep working. I think we have to chip away at Spronger but there are a lot of tools there for us. Saying that, away from the puck is probably his weakness and he knows it.”
It’s likely the reason Sprong has shifted teams as often as he has and has had to settle for a series of one-year contracts like the one he signed with the Canucks three weeks into free agency. Teams like what he can do at the one end of the ice, but are wary about his performance at the other.
And so Sprong settled for a team-friendly $975,000 US contract giving himself another opportunity to show the hockey world he can do more than simply score goals. He’s excited about the opportunity in Vancouver, although he’s not afraid to state publicly that he doesn’t love the contract he signed.
“I know this is probably going to have to be on a price I’m not happy with, but I think for the long term this is the best situation for me,” he said. “I’m kind of tired of signing one year deals and I thought two years back to back, I’d finally get out of it. But ,of course, that wasn’t in the cards. I just wanted to go to a situation where I knew I’d be happy and it was a good situation for me and I didn’t really care about the money. It’s been great here so far.”
That’s where the player and the coach may not quite see eye to eye – just yet.
While Tocchet is quick to concede Sprong has lived up to his billing with the puck on his stick, those old defensive habits reappeared on Friday. The image makeover of Daniel Sprong very much remains a work in progress.
“Today we had a drill where he was F3 and he kind of dove in and they had a three on one,” Tocchet explained. “I said, ‘Spronger, that’s the stuff we need to clean up. But that’s what training camp is for. We have to make sure we’re positive with him. On the offensive side, he hits the puck bar down and scores a couple of goals. You have to put up with a little bit of mistakes early, but we’re really going to work with him.”
Two seasons ago, Sprong scored a career-high 21 goals in 66 games averaging just 11:25 of ice time per game in Seattle. Last season, he netted 18 goals while playing 12 minutes a night in Detroit. Four times in his NHL career, he has scored at least 13 goals in a season. So he’s an intriguing addition to a Canucks line-up that wanted to bolster its offence from the wings.
Even if Sprong doesn’t earn a top line assignment, he still figures to have a role on the Canucks second power play unit although he hasn’t been a prolific goal-scorer with the man-advantage throughout his career with just 14 of his 85 career markers coming on the power play.
Still, if he finds himself with time and space on the power play or at even strength, Sprong is a threat to score with a shot he has worked on for years – and continues to hone each off-season.
“I put a lot of work into it as a kid and I still do in the summertimes,” he said. “I think it’s something that early on in my career was a label to my game and it kind of stuck with me. Of course, it’s good for my confidence and it’s nice when people talk about it all the time, but I think there is more to my offensive game. It’s nice to have such a tool in the tool box. I work on it a lot and it’s something I take pride in and want to have as a staple in my game.”
As for improvements to that shot this off-season?
“You always want to shoot harder, you always want to shoot quicker,” Sprong revealed. “You want to hit certain spots a little better or different angles. It’s how you see the net and where you want the puck to go. During the summer, it’s shooting a lot of pucks in the backyard or at a tennis court with a net, working on different angles. It’s something I’ve been doing since I was five years old so it’s sort of second nature to me.”
Now, if only the defensive side of the game came as easily.
As his time in Penticton folds into the preseason next week, Sprong will continue to do his best to shake the notion that he can’t defend. But he knows full well that every shift he’ll be in the crosshairs of the coaching staff.
“Every camp you go into, it doesn’t matter if it’s your tenth year or your first year, you want to make a good impression no matter what,” he said. “I was ready to go from the start and I’ll build off that. Some camps are easier, some camps are harder. Hopefully I won’t be switching camps anymore and I’ll be making this a spot for me long term.”
For Daniel Sprong, it’s a simple formula for that elusive security come contract time: forecheck, backcheck, pay cheque – with a special emphasis on the backcheck part.
