The Jackets team of prospects took on the St. Louis Blues prospects today in the their final game of the round robin tournament with their spot in the championship game Tuesday already clinched. The CBJ continued the trend of giving up an early goal when the Blues top line got on the board with Ty Rattie and Robby Fabbri working together down low and then finding Yannick Villeux in the slot to make it 1-0.
Six minutes later Oliver Bjorkstrand scored his second of the tournament when he picked up the rebound of an Austin Madaisky point shot on the power play. Two minutes later Jake Chelios scored on the power play to give the Blues their final lead of the game. Mike DiPaolo did what he does best – getting into a marathon (lasted at least a minute) of a bout with the Blues Justin Gutierrez. After that, for some reason, Mike left the game and was in street clothes. I didn’t notice until the second intermission and I don’t remember if I saw him play in the second period.
The second period was quiet until midway through – that’s when the onslaught began. Peter Quenneville started the Jackets’ flurry of goals when he fired a shot while getting checked by two Blues players to tie it after back to back penalties by invite Kevin Ryan (not the best debut Kevin). But during the second penalty kill, TJ Tynan sprung Josh Anderson who finished to make it 3-2. Later, Dillon Heatherington scored the first goal by a Jackets dman in the tournament with the Blues’ Justice Dundas all over him to make it 4-2. With 41 seconds left, Oliver Bjorkstrand would strike from what I began calling “his spot” (left circle to the slot – he took 4 shots from there). Bjorkstrand took a pass from Marko Dano and Alexander Wennberg before notching the goal.
In the third, Kerby Rychel tipped a Markus Soberg centering pass to make it 6-2 after a slight kerfuffle that including Blake Siebenaler getting jumped by Justice Dundas (Blake ducked the hit along the wall, I’ll admit, but I wouldn’t call it a clip), Dunas got tossed for the play to go with a double minor. During the double minor Nick Moutrey who, despite having no points (yet) has had a solid tournament. Moutrey set off on a two on one with Julien Pelletier with Moutrey taking a centering pass from Pelletier to score the extra point. Anton Forsberg stopped 21 of 23 for his second win of the tournament.
PLAYER NOTES
If they did a all star team for this event, I’d hope Josh Anderson would earn a spot on it. He’s been a beast up here and is part of a six way tie for the tournament lead. Alexander Wennberg, despite putting up only a goal and an assist, has been great with his play in all situations. The Jackets changed up its top six tonight and I really liked the change with Marko Dano joining Oliver Bjorkstrand and Alexander Wennberg and TJ Tynan centering the power forward duo of Josh Anderson and Kerby Rychel.
Same leadership group with Thomas Larkin serving as captain and almost getting a piece of Ty Rattie. Wennberg and Madaisky served as alternates.
THREE STARS
1. Oliver Bjorkstrand
2. TJ Tynan
3. Josh Anderson
LINES
Dano (0-1-1) Wennberg (0-1-1) Bjorkstrand (2-0-2)
Rychel (1-0-1 7SOG) Tynan (0-3-3) Anderson (1-0-1)
Moutrey (1-0-1) Sedlak Soberg (0-1-1)
Pelletier (0-2-2) Quenneville (1-0-1) DiPaolo
Heatherington (1-0-1) Madaisky (0-3-3)
Larkin LeBlanc
Siebenaler Ryan
Forsberg
Dansk
So tomorrow is the big one as the CBJ take on the Dallas Stars in a rematch of last year’s 3rd place game. The Stars also went 3-0 but earned one win coming in overtime. We’ll have the recap and my thoughts afterwards so stay tuned!
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