The Detroit Red Wings’ prospects had a hellish third period in a championship game they led 3-2 1:35 into the period, surrendering 5 straight goals en route to a 7-3 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Wings’ record in prospect tournament championships is now 1-and-2.
While Givani Smith scored 2 goals, Dennis Cholowski scored another, and Filip Zadina escaped serious injury when smoked in the head and stung in the wrist while cutting across the blueline…
Kaden Fulcher did not have a good night in goal, and his teammates in front of him were equally willing to surrender time, space and puck control to a Blue Jackets team that made the most of its 18 shots.
After the game, Givani Smith wasn’t quite sure where everything went wrong, though he was at least comforted by the fact that he gave his all…
Filip Zadina was particularly bummed out, suggesting that he should have stayed in the locker room after getting injured because he wasn’t helping the team. It was hard to hear a kid with such a bright future get so down on himself…
Michael Rasmussen, who was essentially a co-captain alongside Dennis Cholowski, addressed the media regarding the loss and spoke quietly and bluntly about his team’s defeat, as well as his own play…
Joe Veleno spoke for the longest period of time of any of the players, reflecting upon his prospect tournament experience after giving a brief post-mortem of the game…
And coach Ben Simon both accentuated the positive and addressed the reality of the situation while looking back at the players who impressed and looking forward to training camp:
Encouraged with positive reports of Givani’s mobility and his ability to pot some goals amid this level of competition while playing a physical game.
There have been enough major areas of need on the Wings and some promising young talent emerging, so that it’s been easy at times to forget: we still need an old-school power forward. Grand Rapids first. But it’s good to hear Givani has been disciplined focused and effective.
I wonder what the criteria were for playing a variety of D these last games over Fraser. I assume because they play slightly safer, simpler, more mature and steadier games? The play in this tournament seems to get downright vicious at times. It would be nice to see a D with some real bite develop into at least a bottom pairing guy.
sounds like it was a rogh loss for the players to take (and probably a poor sight in person), but I can’t help feeling optimistic after this camp.
Veleno is looking especially impressive. Looking forward to the season already.