In what was a hard fought game from start to finish, the Blues youngsters avenged last years loss to the Pred’s with a 2-1 victory. St. Louis went undefeated in the round robin tournament with a strong team effort. All but three players contributed to the scoring, and goaltenders Alex Westlund and Kenrick Exner played solid in goal. The Blues got on the scoreboard first with a goal by James Desmarais at 9:56 of period one. Ladislav Nagy and Barret Jackman assisted on the play. Nashville then tied the score with an early second period goal at 3:49. Jeremy Reich put the Blues on top with his first goal of the tournament at 9:19 of the second period. Dean Stock and Brad Twordik assisted on what stood to be the game winner. The third period was scoreless as the Blues held on for the 2-1 win.
This win, no matter how small it may seem, is a huge step for an organization with a history of not producing prospects. The Blues, having concentrated on building from within, have more depth at the minor pro level than ever before. With each draft year comes a list of capable young players that are groomed for the NHL. Instead of rushing a player through the organization or trading away top picks for quick fix, the Blues have held the hard-line and eventually will be rewarded for that. This victory for the Blues rookies gives us just a glimpse at what will filter down in the coming years. No more big free agent signings, no more headline stealing trades, and no more “sell the farm” tactics. Yes, the Blues prospects are good; very good! Maybe even under rated. Read more»
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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