Timms good to go despite playoff injury, Vegas camp letdowns
There may not have been anyone happier to be on the ice playing in Peterborough Petes scrimmages on Tuesday than Matt Timms.
The 19-year-old defenceman, the club’s top scorer last season, missed most of the playoffs after suffering a shoulder injury in Game 3 of the opening round. He also failed a physical in early July at the Vegas Golden Knights development camp preventing him from participating in his first NHL camp.
But Timms passed his physical with the Petes on Monday and participated in fitness testing and hit the ice for start of scrimmages on Tuesday morning.
“I knew coming in I’d be fine and I’d be ready to go,” Timms said.
In fact, he feels he was able to go in Vegas but felt there was some miscommunication about the state of his recovery.
“I wouldn’t have gone down to Vegas if I didn’t think I was ready to go,” he said.
“It was really disappointing being my first NHL camp. I didn’t really know what to expect and went down there kind of excited to get things going and then being told you can’t participate kind of sucks. At the same time, it was extra fuel and makes you want to work harder to get back there.”
After watching the playoff run to the conference final from the sidelines, Timms was eager to get back into action.
“I worked hard in the off-season and I’m ready to keep the success going in Peterborough,” he said. “We’re returning a lot of guys. I think we’re returning more guys than most teams are. I’m excited to get back to where we were and change the ending.
“You look at some of our guys who didn’t get a ton of ice last year who you saw how talented they were in practice, they’re going to step in and being a year older are going to be that much better. I’m pretty excited about the crop we’re returning.”
Seeing Timms back in action was a bit of relief for head coach Jody Hull who admits after seeing Timms not allowed to participate in Las Vegas it worried him a bit.
“We were very pre-cautious when he first got hurt and he did all the training to get stronger at first,” Hull said.
“(Vegas) probably had some different guidelines when he came to camp that made that decision for him not to participate. But, I think he did the proper things once he came back from there to get on the ice and be ready to go.”
Training camp continues on Wednesday at the Memorial Centre with scrimmages continuing at 8:30 a.m. Following the morning session some roster decisions will be made and remaining players divided into two teams for the annual Maroon and White game at 7:05 p.m.
NOTE: See fitness testing Top 3 results on Page C2.