Greetings all! Sorry for the delay, but a weekend trip to St Louis for the CBJ game happened. This is the part of the year when my recaps get smaller as I like to wait until the end of the first round of each playoff round before recapping how our prospects did.
Starting off in Springfield as we do, Monday was moving day – Sonny Milano was assigned to the Falcons and the team also announced moves involving six players either being assigned to the ECHL, being released from their PTO or being signed to one. It was originally announced that Sonny would have to wait a week (injury) before making his debut but fans began tweeting me that that Sonny was in warmups Friday. Turns out that Sonny did play and it wouldn’t take long for him to make an impact. 4:43 into the first, with Sonny behind the net, he found Luke Adam in front for a one timer to make it 1-0. Just under two minutes later, Ryan Craig made some history scoring his 91st goal with the franchise making him the all-time leader, passing Jean-Guy Trudel. The goal came when Craig deflected a Hubert Labrie point shot. After that, the Falcons allowed four straight goals including one in the second. Quickly, if you want to know how bad things have been in Springfield, the two goals in the first was the first time the Falcons had done this since February 28th which marks a streak of nine games. After the four goals, Sean Collins picked up a rebound to make it 4-3. The Falcons allowed two third period goals to fall 5-3.
The loss kicked the Falcons out of a playoff spot and also let Worchester coach Roy Sommer move into second place all time with his 611th win.
Next, on Saturday, another body joined the Falcons as Seth Ambroz was signed to an ATO. As for the game that night against Hartford, Michael Chaput opened the scoring late in the first on a breakaway. 1:01 later, Ryan Craig scored by tipping a Frederic St Denis point shot to make it 2-0. Sadly, the Wolfpack scored a goal in each period and then added an overtime goal to beat the Falcons 3-2.
To close out the weekend, the Birds headed up to Worchester for a game with the Baby Sharks and it was a lot like Friday night except, unlike Friday and Saturday night, Joonas Korpisalo was in net. He allowed three goals before TJ Tynan struck by snapping a shot from above the circle for his 10th of the season. The Sharks added an empty net goal to finish things off. In the loss Joonas made 23 saves.
Meanwhile, in adventures of Oscar Dansk in Kalamazoo, in his one start it was looking good for Oscar and the Wings against the Colorado Eagles. The Wings took a 3-1 lead into the locker room for the second intermission. But in the third the Wings and Oscar allowed three goals including the game winner with…four seconds left. In the loss Oscar made 29 saves.
Seth Ambroz-Minnesota Golden Gophers (Big 10)
Season Stats 39GP 12-11-23 +3 34PIM
Career Stats 159 40-30-70 139PIM
Yes we’ll talk about the other two Gophers, but it was Seth who actually appeared to give a darn in the Gophers Regional Semifinal against Minnesota-Duluth. Ok, I’m probably ranting a little but it only took six minutes for the Bulldogs to make it 3-0 even though it was Mike Reilly who may made it 3-0 (yes, you read that right). The Dogs added another goal in the second. Finally, late in the third Seth ended Kasimir Kaskisuo’s shutout bid.
Seth was one of two Gopher players to sit in on coach Don Lucia’s press conference and it reminded me of how a lot of times during this time of year you hear about seniors sitting in their locker for an hour postgame in full gear. I bring this up because when Seth was asked his first question it took him a moment – along with the help of a quick thinking jump in from sophomore Vinni Lettieri – for him to respond. Lucia’s press conference is here (you can hear from Seth is in the first seven minutes).
Mike Reilly, Ryan Collins-Minnesota Golden Gophers (Big 10)
Final Season Stats
Reilly 39GP 6-36-42 +25 44PIM
Collins 32GP 1-8-9 +7 14PIM
Ryan and Mike finished their seasons as well with the Minnesota loss. Mike will probably add to his impressive career stats next week when All-Americans and the Hobey Hat Trick (top three players up for the Hobey-everyones opinion Jack Eichel is winning it) are announced.
Mike led the Gophers in scoring making him the first dman to do it since Mike Crowley in 1996-97. Mike also led the Gophers in assists, power play assists and points (almost half of his points came with the man advantage) +/-, shots and penalty minutes.
Ryan Collins will return to Minnesota as one of five returning dmen and one of three freshmen.
Daniel Zaar-Lulea (SHL-Sweden)
Final Playoff Stats 7GP 2-1-3 +1 2PIM
Daniel and the Bears played game seven and fell by a score of 4-2 in a game in which Daniel was held pointless. In the playoffs, Daniel led Lulea in goal scoring and finished third on the team in scoring. It was believed Daniel would head to Springfield much like Marko Dano last year but Daniel is off to join Team Sweden for two games against Slovakia as a tune-up for the World Championships.
Like Daniel, it appears Elvis Merzlikins will join Team Latvia for its pre-World Championships camp.
There you have it folks! Another week in the world of Blue Jackets prospects. We’ll be back next week with probably two updates – one like this one on the Falcons and any international stuff I can find as well as a full recap on the prospects in the CHL playoffs.
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