Shattock, Ross return to Blazers

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
Tyler Shattock has been to the mountain top. And now that he has seen the view, he really wants a return visit.
Shattock, an 18-year-old right-winger, rejoined the WHL’s Kamloops Blazers on Tuesday afternoon following a stint with the NHL’s San Jose Sharks. He will be in the Blazers’ lineup tonight when they play host to the Vancouver Giants — 7 o’clock — at Interior Savings Centre.
The Blazers also expect to have defenceman Nick Ross in the lineup tonight. A first-round selection in the NHL's 2007 draft, he has been in camp with the Phoenix Coyotes but is expected back in Kamloops in time for tonight's game.
Shattock, who wasn’t selected in the NHL’s 2008 draft, was contacted by the Sharks in July and attended their development camp in San Jose later that month. He advanced from there to the Sharks’ rookie camp — which included playing in two games against Anaheim Ducks’ prospects in Las Vegas — and then on to main camp.
“I was pretty pumped,” Shattock said of going to main camp. “I don’t even know how to put it into worlds. Especially when you get down there and you see guys walking around the (dressing) room like Joe Thornton, guys you look up to . . . now I’m in the same room as them.”
Shattock, who is from Salmon Arm and is going into his third season with the Blazers, said he tried to soak up all that he could while with the Sharks.
“You go down there and experience what all those guys do on a daily basis to get where they are,” he said. “You realize what you have to do and what you have to do in your own league to get there.”
Now, he added, he realizes how much work is ahead of him if he hopes to get back to the NHL.
“It’s a combination of things,” said the 6-foot-3, 190-pounder. “Your game can always get better. You see those guys . . . they’re learning every day. Anyone who thinks that they’ve learned enough in the game of hockey is sadly mistaken because you can always learn something knew.”
There were times in San Jose, Shattock admitted, when he found himself standing and watching.
“At the begining it was all the rookie guys so it wasn’t bad,” he said with a chuckle. “Once you got to main camp, you got all the pro guys out there, the Joe Thorntons, the Patrick Marleaus . . . you kind of find yourself watching them a bit . . . trying to learn from them.”
He also discovered that the game actually is easier to play at that level.
“Absolutely,” he said, pointing out that there is little in the way of scrambly play there. “And then you got (defencemen) like Danny Boyle. He never makes a wrong play . . . always makes the right play. If you’re open you’re going to get the puck.
“It’s all about playing smart.”
Shattock is coming off a disappointing season, one that mirrored that of the Blazers. He scored six goals in the exhibition season, but then opened the regular season by going 17 games without a goal. He then scored nine times in 18 games but that was followed by a seven-game drought. And then, on Jan. 5 in Kelowna, he broke his left tibia. That cost him 23 games and he was quite ineffective when he returned. In the end, he finished with 23 points, including nine goals, in 48 games.
Shattock will open tonight on the right side of a line with centre Scott Wasden and left-winger Alex Rodgers, who also is from Salmon Arm. Head coach Barry Smith said Shattock also will see time on the power-play and penalty-killing units.
Smith said he is looking for Shattock “to take pucks to the net and go to the net. In front and in traffic, he’s a big body and has good enough hands that he should score some goals for us.”
Smith said he also expects Shattock to supply the team with some energy.
“He’ll be energized,” Smith said, adding that the fact Shattock’s travels didn’t take through any time zones will help him, too.
“I’m jacked,” Shattock said. “Those (San Jose rookie) games meant something but these ones are what it’s really about.”
He knows, too, that after last season the Blazers have a lot of work ahead of them.
“We have to keep going out there and impressing guys and earning respect back from last season,” he said.
Not that the Blazers are dwelling on the past.
“It’s behind us now,” Shattock said. “We can’t worry about that now. The past is past. Everything has changed.”
gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca