DetroitRedWings.com’s Arthur J. Regner spotlights Red Wings prospect Joren van Pottelberghe this morning, with Wings developmental goaltending coach Brian Mahoney-Wilson weighing in on “JvP’s” upside:
Quotable: “Joren’s a big goalie that got drafted in 2015 by Detroit and has developed the last couple of years in Davos and he’s slowly starting to develop into a No. 1 role in Davos. He has to have a big year this coming year in 2018-19, but overall last year he started off very strong with a 5-2 record. Up until November 15th, he was tied with the best stats in the Swiss League with Elvis Merzlikins, the Columbus Blue Jackets prospect who is from Latvia and he also lost in the NLA Finals. From there, Joren had a hiccup in mid-December where he let up seven goals against; it seemed to fluster him a little bit and what happened, the Davos team has a New Jersey prospect, Gilles Senn, he’s going to be a very good goalie, who’s probably going to come over a year from now into their system in Binghamton. He ended up taking over for Joren, playing in 14 of the last 16 games and also playing into the playoffs. From that point on, Joren became the backup.
“I actually went and saw Joren firsthand play in a game live in Switzerland and he played well, but his game from Christmas on wasn’t at the same level it was in the fall of 2017. From my standpoint, I met with Joren for a couple of days in Davos and expressed my interest in him and ways we could develop him further from the current ways he’s being developed in Davos. In the long term, he’s got one year left and hopefully he makes a bold statement with that organization and gets the majority of playing time over the New Jersey prospect, Gilles Senn, and by the spring of 2019, hopefully he puts us in a situation where we’re forced to force our hand and sign him. But right now, we have five other goalie prospects and two that we drafted this year from Sweden. A goalie in Filip Larsson at Denver, who’s a very good prospect; Kaden Fulcher, who just won an OHL championship; Keith Petruzzelli, who’s getting on a better track we think and hopefully he’s going to have a rebound year at Quinnipiac. So, it’s a tough road ahead for Joren, but I truly believe that he could do it. We’ll see, but that’s to be determined.” – Brian Mahoney-Wilson, Detroit’s goaltending development coach
