It’s a brand new week, and while we’re still waiting for a number of teams and leagues to get going, it’s been another reasonably solid one for the group of prospects who have gotten their seasons up and running. Let’s get into it.
The News of the Week
With still only two NHL preseason games down, there are still a number of players left to get in for their first bit of action, and still more who the front office will be looking to gain stronger impressions of. All of this amounts to a longer wait before we see the next round of cuts made, and until that happens, we’ll stay a little short on news to report on around here.
Three Stars
Aleksei Kolosov
It’s been a big week in the world of goalies, as Kolosov has gotten the bulk of the workload through these early preseason goings, and he’s doing well in that role. He’s played two periods in each of his first two games, and allowed two goals on 17 shots in the first showing, and then one on 13 in the second, as he’s continuing to settle in. He’s still made a few mistakes, lapses in judgement or positioning, but he’s equally shown flashes of brilliance in his quick glove and even quicker post-to-post movement. The equation hasn’t really changed for him, as it’s clear that he needs some more reps in the minors to get his game developed to the level It needs to be at in order for him to find more sustained, but all the same, it’s a real positive to see him getting his game building in the right direction for now, after such an up and down season last time around.
Carson Bjarnason
On the other side of that, Bjarnason has been used somewhat sparingly so far, as he’s played just the one regulation period (plus overtime and the shootout) on Long Island, but that showing on the whole was a very good one. In that final regulation frame, he was perfect, stopping all 17 of the shots he faced and keeping things well locked down as the Flyers worked to rally back in that game for the shootout win. His play is continually improving, as that short showing saw him facing a difficult workload and looking much more settled and confident than he did back in the rookie games. There’s still a lot of camp left ahead of him, and it’s yet to be seen what he’ll do from here, but he’s opened the door for a lot of optimism about how he can keep building his momentum through the rest of the NHL preseason and then into his eventual start to the regular season with the Phantoms.
Max Westergard
It’s been another exciting week for Westergard, to say the least. We saw him end last week up in the SHL with Frolunda, getting in for one game, we recall, wherein he played a meager 3:57, but now he’s back with their U20 squad and has been picking up steam very nicely in an increased role with them. In his last two games played, he put up a tidy four points (a goal and three assists), bringing him up to seven points in his first three games with them — a total which is good for a comfortable team lead after their first five games of the season. Now, there’s certainly a hope here that Westergard can get an extended look up a level this season, against more difficult competition, but as it’s still early goings, we’re appreciating seeing him just continuing to rack up the points.
Honorable Mentions
As we’re rounding out our discussion of the Flyers’ first two preseason games, we’ll offer a quick nod to a few prospects who made their preseason debuts this week and, while they weren’t able to get themselves into the scoring mix, still did bring some notable pop. Denver Barkey, for one, made his debut in the Sunday game and was buzzing nicely, chipping in a nearly team-leading four shots on goal, while we also saw Alexis Gendron similarly using his speed nicely, and he chipped in one shot and was also able to set up a dangerous looking chance in front of the net. And then in the Tuesday game, Alex Bump debuted and once he was unleashed (read: moved around in the lineup and off of a line with Nic Deslauriers), his offensive game started to wake up, and he contributed two grade-A chances as the Flyers worked to come back from their deficit. Matthew Gard also got in for that game, and while he did look a bit overmatched at times, it feels at least somewhat notable that he beat out some older and more developed players to get in for an early game.
But as far as the actual producers go outside of that trio up top, there haven’t been many to go around. Here, we have just Austin Moline who, after being one of the first cuts from NHL camp last week, was able to head back to Madison to get his season in the USHL started, and he was able to start it reasonably well. After being held off the board in his first game of the season, he was able to chip in an assist in the Capitals’ loss to Fargo on Sunday.
Things are going well elsewhere in the goaltending part of the pool, as things have been picking up nicely for Yegor Zavragin. It took him a while to actually get in for his first start of his KHL season — it only just happened last Friday, in SKA St. Petersburg’s fifth game of the season — but now that he’s gotten a chance to get in for some games, he’s making the most of it. In his three starts to date, he managed a 34 save on 36 shots performance to carry his team to an overtime win, a 29 save shutout in his second appearance, and though his third saw him pick up his first loss of the season, he still managed to make 31 saves on 34 shots faced, so not a bad effort all in all.
And finally, we’ll close this out with a quick recap of the non-happenings. That is, for one, Santeri Sulku made his season debut with KooKoo in Liiga back on September 12, wherein he played 6:20 and failed to record a point, and he hasn’t played since. Jack Berglund has played one more game since we last spoke, and is still holding onto his role with his SHL squad, but is seeing his minutes decreasing (his two games before this weekend saw him averaging a little over 14 minutes an outing, but in his most recent game, he was down to 9:48), and he remains on the hunt for his first point of the season, as do Alex Ciernik and Nathan Quinn, who made his season debut with Quebec this weekend.
