Hello all! It has been a light week in the world of prospects’ hockey so we’ll just be focusing on the Falcons and the four Jacket prospects taking part in the World Junior Championships.
Starting off in Springfield as we always do, the Falcons came out of the Christmas Break with every hockey player’s favorite thing: a three in three. Opening up the week in Hartford, the Falcons picked up a 2-1 shootout victory. Marko Dano scored the Falcons’ goal in regulation when my favorite first round pick to laugh at – Dylan McILOLrath (10th overall pick nothing but a goon) – tried to clear the puck but Ryan Craig deflected it to Marko who tied the game. TJ Tynan scored the only goal of the shootout. Anton Forsberg won his 14th win of the season with 28 saves and stops on all three Wolfpack shooters.
For the next game, Oscar Dansk returned to the Falcons crease with Forsberg in Columbus to back up Curtis McElhinney due to Sergei Bobrovsky’s illness. In the second period, with the Birds trailing 2-0, Kerby Rychel gathered a loose puck and found Josh Anderson in the slot. Anderson fired a shot home for his third in his last five games. Three minutes later, Frederic St Denis scored his first as a result of a board battle and a nice passing sequence by Rychel and Anderson. Reid Boucher scored four minutes later before Craig tied the game in the third period off a deflection of a Denny Urban point shot. Unfortunately, the Falcons lost when Joe Whitney scored 34 seconds into overtime. Oscar Dansk made 21 saves in the 4-3 loss.
To close out the weekend, the Falcons faced off against the Syracuse Crunch who had just had their 10 game winning streak snapped. Luke Adam opened the scoring just 39 seconds into the game when he tipped a Hubert Labrie point shot. After two Crunch goals, Adam struck again late in the second period picking up the rebound of a Frederic St Denis point shot. The game went to overtime with one time Junior Jacket Denny Urban scoring the game winner on his second try after getting the puck from Austin Madaisky. Forsberg would only make 15 saves in the win – his 15th.
Now on to the World Juniors.
Dillon Heatherington and Canada finished up their pretournament schedule with a 6-0 win over Switzerland. Dillon was held pointless in the win. Dillon did dress as the Canadians seventh dman in their opener against Slovakia but according to Mark Masters of TSN he appeared to supplant Flyers mammoth D prospect Sam Morin mid-game. In the Canadians massive blowout of Germany…well they scored four but c’mon most expected at least 10 probably…Dillon was paired with Joe Hicketts on the third D pair. Dillon has seen some PK time and had a nice play with Caps prospect Madison Bowey according to Yahoo’s Neate Sager. Up next for the Canadians is a game on Monday against Finland who is 0-0-1-1 (W-OTW-OTL-L).
Oliver Bjorkstrand and Denmark played only one pre-tournament game due to taking part in the WJAC and they ended up squeaking by the Germans by a score of 3-2 in a shootout. Denmark appears to be a media darling even earning “go Denmark go” chants at the ACC. It’s worth mention they were playing Russia and I think some Canadians have an “I’m rooting for Canada and whoever is playing the US or Russia” attitude at the WJC. Oliver is on a line – or as some would say Denmark’s “only” line – with Nikolaj Ehlers and the coach’s son Mads Eller. Oliver scored the tournament’s opening goal when on the power play he unleashed a missile from above the circle to make it 1-0 Danes. Denmark ended up falling 3-2 in a shootout. Up next against against Sweden, the opponents picked up a 5-1 victory with Oliver going pointless but he ended up being named Denmark’s player of the game. Up next for the Danes is a game against the Czech Republic (0-0-0-2).
In the US’ final pre-tournament game, the US dominated the Swedes winning 10-5 with Sonny Milano picking up five assists in the win while playing on a line with Auston Matthews and Nick Schmaltz. In the win, Ryan Collins was held pointless playing as the team’s seventh d-man. Late on Christmas Day just before the deadline, Team USA announced that they had cut defenseman Steve Santini who had missed most of the year due to recovery from wrist surgery which meant that Ryan Collins had made Team USA.
In their opening shootout win over Finland, Sonny again played with Matthews and Schmaltz and Ryan dressed as the team’s seventh d-man. In the 2-1 shootout win both were held pointless with Sonny missing in the shootout. The US finished the week against Germany and for this match, Sonny was reunited with his old NTDP teammates Jack Eichel and Alex Tuch. The trio had combined for 236 point last season. Sonny scored his first goal of the tournament early in the second period when he drove down the side with JT Compher on his wing. Sonny tried to pass but it was blocked so he gathered the puck back and put it over the German goalie’s leg. The US would win the game 6-0. Up next is a game against Slovakia before the big one against Canada on New Year’s Eve to close out the round robin.
There you have it folks – a quick update on the Jackets prospects. As for next week we’ll be back with a full recap along with more on the World Juniors.
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