Wings and Blues Go for the Gold. Atlanta takes Bronze.

By Jessica Haskin
Some of the Detroit Red Wings and St. Louis Blues prospects stood around
the perimeter of the rink watching Nashville and Chicago play for fifth
place as they taped their sticks or just passed time before their game.
Sean Avery came out with three sticks, he took one and gave it to a
security guard asking him to give it to a kid in the stands. Avery took
another one and gave it to a girl of about 10 years old sitting in the
stands near the end where he could hand it up to her. Then he took his
remaining stick and started taping it.

The Red Wings and Blues filed out onto the ice for the start of the
game. When the first Red Wing skated out onto the ice the fans went
ecstatic cheering and stomping their feet.

JF Perras started in goal for Detroit and Stephen Wagner for St. Louis.

Perras stoned Justin Papineau on a point blank shot from the left of the
net four minutes into the game. Aaron Fox found a hole though in Perras
2 minutes later when he scored an unassisted goal. Fox skated into the
offensive zone and fired the puck over Perras’ left shoulder.

With less than two minutes to go in the first period St. Louis took a
high sticking call. Magnus Nillson scored on the man advantage with
helpers from Jason Williams and Sean Avery.

Tim Verbeek took two minutes for holding with 34.5 seconds left in the
period.

Fourteen seconds into the second period Avery drew a minor penalty for
slashing Mike Van Ryn in the groin. Avery went to the box with his coy
smile as Van Ryn skated slowly towards his bench doubled over in pain.

St. Louis now had a two man advantage and Van Ryn was out there to make
Avery pay, and he did. Van Ryn made a nice pass to Shawn Mamane who
fired the puck finding it’s target, inside the net.

St. Louis still on the power play scored yet again, this time Brett
Lutes and Fox working together to get it done. Andrei Troschinsky
scored an unassisted goal at 9:32 of the second.

Verbeek passed the puck back to Paul Ballantyne who fired a bullet past
Wagner from the blueline.

Sean Peach went for tripping at 12:05. Shawn Mamane following his
example did the same a half minute later. Verbeek then got called for
interference. St. Louis now had a 4 on 3 power play with plenty of room
to work. Mark Rycroft made a nice pass to Van Ryn who sent it home.

Dwayne Zinger took two minutes for cross checking putting St. Louis on
the power play yet again. Aaron Fox scored his second of the night on
the power play.

With less than 2 minutes left in the period Brad Voth went to the box
for tripping. Detroit took advantage of the situation and Dustin Kuk
scored a beautiful goal off a pass from Williams.

Detroit lost their first game of the camp leaving with the Silver.
The Blues had a happy lot traveling to St. Louis for their training camp
with their Gold.

BRONZE GAME:

Atlanta took the Bronze home after beating Columbus 6-1 on Tuesday
night. Columbus allowed 5 goals in the first period, they were scored
by Ben Simon, Simon Gamache, Derek MacKenzie, Brian Pothier, Jules-Edy
Laraque. Columbus’ only goal came by Shawn Skonley with 6 minutes left
in the first. Atlanta scored 2:46 into the second for the final goal of
the evening, coming from Libor Ustrnul.