Follow me on Twitter Follow @TheJeremyLaura
Detroit won its first game of the prospects tournament, beating Dallas 5-4 in what ended up being a nail biter. Dallas had a similar performance against Columbus on Friday night, falling short after controlling a good deal of the pace. St. Louis nearly had a come from behind win against a Maple Leafs squad that lost to Columbus in overtime after squandering a lead. The Blues will be looking for their first tournament win tonight.
With a couple of days to reflect, I’m still very impressed at what Chase Pearson and Kirill Tyutyayev put together in that first game. Their line scored 3 of the 5 goals, and seemed to have a lot of jump. For the line of Veleno, Berggren and Raymond, it was Raymond’s first game in 7 months and first ever on “smaller… ice. On both goals, Berggren made fantastic plays. His ability to hold onto the puck in the corners and make plays is evident. I thought his efforts were seriously overlooked in some of the post game talk.
Veleno has speed and strength. As a center, I still have the same concerns I had last season. I wouldn’t mind seeing a swap and having Berggren take the draws as the tournament winds down. JV is stronger as a winger, and brings a lot more to the table with his offensive play than his defense. Freeing him up from the middle will help him to maximize his assets (of which he has several).
The concern tonight is physicality. Dallas did everything they did to knock Detroit’s goalie out of play. (They attempted the same against CBJ last night). Detroit certainly has some skill out there, but not much in the way of size for this tournament. (Not a huge concern normally in a camp like this). I don’t want to see McIsaac get run, the goalie get sat on, or have any of the skill forwards carted off the ice. They’ll need to have their heads on a swivel tonight. No one wants to leave this tournament with 1 or fewer wins, and St. Louis will be 0 for 2 (technically 0-1-1) if Detroit can fill the net up again.
The Redwings official site will have the video link at game time. Puck drops around 7:00, broadcast starts at 6:40. Ken Kal did a nice job calling the game for Toronto and CBJ last night. Those golden pipes are in fine form, but beware Art Regner’s “Georgia Peach… invasion.
Check out my previous posts: