With the beginning of the Buffalo Sabres ’99 training camp just a day away, this would be a good time to present a camp preview. The main purpose of this article will be to speculate which Sabre prospects, if any, will make a push to stay with the big club. The Sabres have seven restricted free agents, as well as one unrestricted free agent, so it is possible that some younger players will be thrown into the fire until the veterans arrive. Given the fact that the Sabres are coming off a Stanley Cup final appearance, however, it is unlikely that many of the prospects will make the Sabres roster on merit, since there would be few roster spots available without the training camp holdouts.
I’m going to break down each position, listing the incumbents (veterans) and prospects at each position, and follow that with a brief analysis identifying which prospects, if any, have an opportunity to make the Sabre roster. An asterisk (*) next to a name denotes either a restricted or unrestricted free agent. There will be instances where a player’s name will appear at more than one position, which means that the player is not exclusively used at a certain position.
Center
Incumbents
- Mike Peca, Curtis Brown *, Stu Barnes *, Wayne Primeau *, Joe Juneau *, Brian Holzinger
Prospects
- Mike Zigomanis, Brad Moran, Francois Methot, Aaron Goldade, Kamil Piros, Brad Self
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 Last night the Brandon Wheat Kings faithful had a good look at the future of the Wheat Kings as Brandon faced off against the Regina Pats in the first pre-season tilt of the year.
This is definitely a whole new year for the Wheaties as many high profile players have graduated to the pro ranks this past year. Gone are Burke Henry, Andrei Lupandin, Ryan Robson, Jason Chimera and Brett McLean. I fully expect Brad Twordik to hang on in the St. Louis organization, so count him out too.
Hold overs, not including the 20 year olds are: Goaltenders, Jomar Cruz and Jamie Hodson (injury list until December). Defensemen, Brett Thurston, Corey Unser and Wade Skolney Fowards, Richard Mueller, Jan Fadrny, Brett Girard, Petr Kudrna, Aaron Goldade, J.D. Kehler, Mike Wirll, Ryan Craig and Randy Ponte.
Twenty year olds is where it is extra interesting for Brandon. Not including Brad Twordik, the Wheat Kings have four high quality 20 year olds. They are Daniel Tetrault, Les Borsheim, Scott McCallum and Alex Argyriou. I count for sure one too many, three if maybe Twordik comes back.
With a plethora of hold-overs coming back and extra 20 year olds, trades are imminent. Who goes? Who stays?
A look at the future might hold the keys to what Brandon does.
Let’s look at the prospects, those not on the roster last year.
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The Utah Grizzlies begin their 5th season in the IHL this up coming season and though the
franchise has been around 6 years (1 year was spent in Denver), there is alot of history
surounding the team. The Grizzlies first year of existence was in Denver, Colorado which is no
stranger to professional hockey. The International Hockey League granted Denver their first IHL
franchise in 1959-60 as the Denver Mavericks, but due to unseen circumstances the Mavericks
ended up moving to Minneapolis to complete the season as the Minneapolis Millers. The NHL moved
into Denver with the Colorado Rockies until moving to New Jersey.
The IHL moved back into Denver as the Colorado Rangers in 1987-88 in which the Rangers lasted
two seasons. In 1987-88 the Rangers finished 5th with a 44-35-3 record for 91 points in 82
games. Todd Elik lead the Rangers in scoring with 44 goals, 56 assists for 100 points and had 81
PIM in 81 games. Also Simon Wheeldon finished the season with 99 points on 45 goals, 54 assists
with 80 PIM in 69 games. Mike Ritcher lead the Rangers goalies posting a 3.14 GAA, with 1
shutout, 68 goals against and 1298 minutes played in 22 games. In the playoffs the Rangers
defeated Kalamazoo 4 games to 3 games, but were outsted by Salt Lake in the quarterfinals 4
games to 2 games. In 1988-89 the Rangers became known as the Denver Rangers instead of the
Colorado Rangers and posted a 33-42-7 record for 73 points in 82 games. In the Playoffs the Read more»
Wow, what a difference 24 hours make. Either the Panther prospects are really bad, or this group of Montreal prospects really turned things around after Wednesday’s debacle versus Tampa. No significant roster changes except for the addition of Aaron Asham. The other changes were Konstantin Sidulov, Jason Lehoux, and Sebastien Thinel who did not play. Benoit Cotnoir, Jerome Marois were inserted in the lineup. Mathieu Garon also replaced Evan Lindsay in goal.
For those of you keeping track, Montreal lost the opener on Wednesday to Tampa Bay by a score of 4-3 but were totally outplayed and outshot. In the night cap game, Florida beat the Ottawa prospects by a score of 4-3 as well.
In yesterday’s early game, Ottawa beat Tampa 3-2 in a shootout. After a 5 min overtime period didn’t settle matters, Petr Schastlivy beat Robert Holsinger with the only shootout goal for the win. Mathieu Chouinard was outstanding as he stopped all five Tampa shooters. Simon Lajeunesse let in two Tampa goals by Chris Gignac and Sergei Kuznetsov earlier in the game. The other goal scorers for Ottawa were British import Jonathan Weaver and Chris Neil.
So with Montreal’s decisive 5-2 victory over Florida each team has won and lost a game which should make Friday’s matches very interesting.
Here’s a quick rundown of what I thought of each of the Montreal Prospect’s performance in this game:
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Well it’s hockey pool time — the favourite time of year for some of us — and with that we find at our local newsstands a
myriad of publications. So to help you with your picks in your hockey pool, here is a guide to some of the best, and worst, magazines to choose from. I’m not going to go into things such as who gives the best stats, generally they all give good stats, goals scored, assists, minutes played. Just the beef here, not soy allowed.
Now, there are different publications for different tastes and needs, but you can decide what you want, and where your money is best spent. But here is the order that I find the best.
For my money Slam’s Hockey Forecaster is far and away the best out there. While others give you glitz and sizzle, the Forecaster gives you most of everything. For the average office poolster they give a breakdown of the best to pick and the best to avoid. Their write-ups are concise and give you their opinion on why or why not a player will produce. But where this publication shines is in their coverage of secondary players and the prospects. While the average poolie wouldn’t touch a Tom Poti last year (and for good reason) the perpetual, or rotisserie, poolies love these little things and the Forecaster gives you plenty of this. If year in year out you Read more»
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