The news of the week
It’s been a relatively quiet week on the news front, but the bits that we do have to recap are pretty major. We had a pair of recalls go through this week, and we saw Emil Andrae called up to the Flyers before he could even play a game for the Phantoms (he’s also yet to get in for a game with the Flyers, but we’ll see if that changes in either of the two remaining games on their road trip). Over in the KHL, we also saw Yegor Zavragin recalled from his loan to Sochi to St. Petersburg as a result of his excellent work to start the season. He’s gotten in for a pair of games — more on that later — and it will be interesting to see how he fares with a much stronger team playing in front of him.
What’s up with the Phantoms?
It was a big, albeit short, week for the Phantoms as well, as they finally kicked off their regular season on Saturday, but had this as their only game of the week. It was an exciting one too, to say the least — the Phantoms managed to outshoot the Wolf Pack 48-25, but it still took a shootout to settle this one. The Phantoms did manage to take the win in the shootout, coming away with a 4-3 win to start the season. Just like they drew it up.
It was a relatively quiet showing for the prospects, but we did still have a handful of players who brought a nice bit of pop. Samu Tuomaala, seemingly right back to regular form after the injury he took in the rookie series, led the scoring charge, putting up a goal and an assist, while also putting up a good underlying effort, with four shots on goal.
Elsewhere, we saw a nice bit of continuity in the next two notable forward stat lines — both Olle Lycksell and J.R. Avon each picked up an assist in regulation, put up three shots on goal of their own, and scored in the shootout to help secure the win. The Phantoms as a whole seemed to be playing a faster game, at least in this one, but these two in particular really seemed to be buzzing.
And then, in something of a surprise development, we saw Alexei Kolosov getting the start in the opener — a pretty clear indication that the team is prioritizing him in the three goaltender mix they’re carrying now — and it was a bit of a mixed bag of a showing. He stopped 22 of the 25 shots he faced (good for an .880 save percentage), and was able to lock it down in the shootout to help secure the win, but there were also times when it looked like he was struggling to read play and looked a bit scrambley in turn. Now, we acknowledge that he’s still pretty new to the league, and we’re still in the figuring it out period for him, so this is more or less to be expected. He’ll have a lot of runway ahead of him to continue to settle in, and we’ll see how that trends over the next few weeks.
The prospect world tour
Elsewhere in the world, as we noted earlier, Zavragin got into action for his first pair of games with Sochi this week, and the results overall were pretty solid. He was sort of thrown straight into the fire, as his first bit of game action was a relief showing after things had gotten pretty well out of hand, and he closed things out by stopping three of the four shots he faced. His first proper start seems a better measurement of where he’s at, and this went much more smoothly — he had a heavy workload, facing 37 shots in total, but he managed to stop 35 of those shots on the way to securing his first win with the team, to boot.
Over in Mestis, Santeri Sulku had himself a productive week after a bit of a down period, as he put up three goals and two assists across his last three games played. Alex Ciernik also had a productive last three game span as he continues to roll well in the Allsvenskan. He’s got a goal and three assists over that string of games.
Back stateside, Heikki Ruohonen is finding a nice bit of consistency as he continues to settle into the USHL. He played two games this week with Dubuque, and put up two goals and an assist.
And then up in the CHL, we finally saw the pair of prospects up in London finally getting rolling, and it was a big week for them. In their first three games played, Oliver Bonk put up a goal and three assists (his offense sure isn’t slowing down here), while Barkey had two assists. And did… whatever this was.
We’ve seen a nice little bit of offense put up by defenders this week, on the whole — over in the QMJHL, Spencer Gill and Matteo Mann both put up an assist over their last two games, and out West, Carter Sotheran has three assists over his last four games. And rounding out our trip through the CHL, we’ll check in with Carson Bjarnason. It’s been pretty up and down for him so far this season, and this was definitely a down week — he had a pretty tough week, as he faced 40 shots and then 36 shots in those last two games, and he gave up three and six goals in those games, respectively, and came away with a pair of losses in turn.
And finally, things are starting to ramp up over in the NCAA, and a good group of prospects were able to find some production this past week. Notre Dame opened up their season against St. Lawrence, and Cole Knuble was able to carry his momentum right over from last season, and picked up two goals in that game. Owen McLaughlin
-knuble 1gp 2g against st lawrence
-mclaughlin 1gp 1a against providence
-bump 2gp 1a pair of wins over duluth
