Red Wings top draft picks starting to jell in Team USA camp at LCA
Detroit — Day 2 of USA Hockey’s Summer Showcase practice camp saw a pair of Red Wings draft picks flank a top 2027 draft prospect, and the trio turned some heads.
Detroit draftees J.P. Hurlbert and Victor Plante played with 2027 draft-eligible Sammy Nelson and looked like a strong group as Team USA evaluates a 48-player group contending for December’s 25-man World Junior roster.
Hurlbert and Plante, drafted by the Red Wings in the first and second rounds, respectively, last month in Buffalo, bring strong offensive toolkits to the grouping. Nelson dominated drills at both ends of the ice at Little Caesars Arena’s Belfor training center. The group played with an attacking mindset, and that meshed well with the identity Team USA is preaching at this early camp.
“There’s a lot of good players out there, and it’s going to be competitive to make the team for sure,” said USA coach Adam Nightingale, the head coach at Michigan State.
“But definitely, some guys you can tell are starting to step off the page a little bit.”
If Nelson and the Wings fit that bill, then their performance is more of a reunion tour than a breakthrough debut. The line skated together with the U.S. National Team Development Program before Hurlbert spent last season with the WHL’s Kamloops Blazers. All that earlier experience is something the group can draw on.
“I played with them a little bit in the past couple years at the national team,” Nelson told The News. “So I have a little connection with them. Two great players, and it makes it easy to play with them.”
A lot of players on the roster spent time together with USA Hockey’s various development and tournament teams, which Nelson said tends to make a camp like this week’s easier. The group gets along, and even though players represent 15 colleges and six different leagues, that is all put aside for the national team.
Practices at Belfor were held in familiar confines for Hurlbert and Plante, who spent some time together there at Detroit Red Wings development camp earlier this month. The two appear to get along well. After one reporter asked Plante about Hurlbert’s skill set, and Plante gave a complimentary review, Hurlbert slid his fellow draftee a fist bump and a grin. Plante, 18, is headed to Minnesota-Duluth this fall, while Hurlbert, 18, is joining Michigan.
This summer has been a whirlwind for Hurlbert. After the draft and development camp, he has been training in Detroit while living with fellow prospects Carter Bear (first-round pick by the Red Wings in 2025) and Justice Christensen (Grand Rapids signee). A lot of that training is preparing him to scale up from junior hockey to the NCAA.
“I think for me it’s kind of bigger, faster, stronger,” Hurlbert told The News. “Obviously, I’m going to play against men now in college and 24-year-olds, so I gotta be strong physically and be able to get away and use separation. So the gym’s been a big thing for me and just kind of evaluating my all-around game.”
Wolverines and Spartans sharing USA blue line
If a hostile college rivalry between Michigan and Michigan State usually ends with bad blood (sometimes even blood on the ice), then seeing two pairs of Spartans and Wolverines playing on USA’s blue line may come as quite a shock.
Michigan’s Asher Barnett and Michigan State’s Chase Reid are playing next to one another, while the Wolverines’ Drew Schock is playing next to the Spartans’ Tommy Bleyl. All four have put in good reps alongside 12 other defensemen in the mix for roughly half as many roster spots.
Barnett and Reid return from the 2026 World Junior team that lost in the quarterfinal this past January. They both play with a smoothness that stands out in their age group, controlling the puck and making decisive reads in transition. Schock and Bleyl do much the same, except they’re trying to crack the World Junior roster for the first time.
Through the past four years at Michigan State, Nightingale’s teams have excelled in transition, in no small part because of the blue line. It sounds like a similar priority on transition exists with Team USA.
“We want D that can end plays, and then that can extend plays offensively,” Nightingale said. “And we think you gotta be hard to play against in your own end, and you gotta be able to move the puck to our forwards, and we got a lot of options, definitely, with this group in that.”
Other early standouts include Michigan State defenseman Sean Barnhill and Carter Amico, who both tower at 6-foot-6 and 6-foot-5, respectively. Their lengthy reach kills lots of plays in the defensive zone, and Amico in particular dominated on the puck in possession drills.
Michigan State defenseman Tommy Bleyl a big tennis fan
Top athletes tend to specialize in their sports when they get to high school. Instead, Bleyl added another that he is passionate about. Bleyl, an incoming Michigan State freshman drafted 31st overall by Nashville in June’s NHL Draft, picked up tennis three years ago, and he still plays it often.
“I was playing with some of my hockey friends at Albany Academy, and we all made the varsity team for Albany Academy, and I really, really enjoyed it,” Bleyl said. “So I just kept playing from there on out.”
Bleyl also made the varsity team at prep school Cushing Academy, where he played two years ago before joining the QMJHL’s Moncton Wildcats last season. He scored 81 points in 63 regular season games for Moncton, in addition to 28 points in a run to the QMJHL Finals.
The Canadian Hockey League’s rookie of the year also scored match point quite a few times since the season ended.
“Over the summer when I had the chance at home, I would always play as much as I could with different friends and hockey players,” said Bleyl, who credits it with improving his agility.
Maybe Bleyl is onto something. He is one of the most fluid skaters on the ice for the Americans, and he’ll get the chance to polish his game this season with Michigan State, which added him to the freshman class shortly after the NHL Draft instead of waiting until 2027-28. Bleyl didn’t have much left to prove after torching the QMJHL with Moncton. Now, he’ll play against older competition, and work with renowned strength and conditioning coach Will Morlock, who can help shape his 160-pound frame.
“It was a really hard conversation to make, but it ended up being a great choice so far,” Bleyl said. “I mean, I’m fitting in really well at Michigan State, and it seems like the perfect level.”
@ConnorEaregood
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Red Wings top draft picks starting to jell in Team USA camp at LCA
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