MLive’s Ansar Khan, The Athletic’s Max Bultman and Detroit Hockey Now’s Nate Brown all weigh in regarding prospect tournament “standouts” this morning, with each author discussing prospects in a slightly different manner.
- Khan offers capsule assessments of six prospects, via coach Ben Simon’s takes on said prospects…
Sebastian Cossa, goaltender: “He played extremely well here. … You can see that he’s ready, he’s hungry, and let’s see what happens in camp. … I always defer to the goalie gurus we have, but I thought he played the puck pretty well (Monday), not that that was a perceived deficiency, but it was noticeable that he was competent coming out and playing the puck.”
Simon Edvinsson, defenseman: “I think you can see the poise he has with the puck, his play recognition for the most part is elite. He’s going to be a really good player for a really long time. He’s still very young, though, that’s important to understand. Some of these kids that come in here, there’s all this hype and expectation, sometimes it just doesn’t happen overnight. He will make rookie mistakes. Veterans have made rookie mistakes. But he does a lot of little things well for a younger player and has the confidence that bodes well for his future.”
2. Bultman’s set of observations are tournament-wide, so he went with one player who stood out from across the rosters of four of the five participating teams, with Sebastian Cossa earning the nod as Detroit’s representative:
Sebastian Cossa, G, Detroit: Detroit evenly split time among three goalies at the event, so Cossa played in half of two games, but he was dominant. He stopped 33 of the 34 shots he saw, including some tough ones with the pads. He’s big, athletic and looked in control through the weekend. He was the clear-cut top goaltender at the tournament. It’ll be really interesting to see where Detroit opts to play him this season, a decision that looks like it will stretch into main camp and the preseason.
3. And Brown discussed the “stock” levels of five prospect tournament participants:
Stock Up: Riley Piercey: Scoring four goals in one game is certainly one way to catch the attention. Throwing down in a fight, and then winning one, is certainly a way to put an exclamation point on it.
How about leading the entire tournament in goals, too? Adding one more against Toronto, Piercey finished with five.
However it’s sliced, Piercey endeared himself to fans with his tenacity and performance. The undrafted rookie who was a non-roster invitee may very well have earned himself a contract in Grand Rapids. During an intermission interview with Ken Kal and Daniela Bruce, director of player personnel Daniel Cleary had quite a bit to say about him.
“I happened to watch that Flint-Windsor series in Flint and he just caught my eye,” Cleary said. “There was one game they were losing and me and Drapes were there. They were losing four to nothing. He gets in this fight and he kinda has the hands going, you know, one of those kids. They came back and won. I was like ‘Gee I really like this kid.’”
Piercey again had his hands going with some fisticuffs in Saturday’s 5-4 loss, encouraging the crowd to get loud after getting the better of Stars prospect Gavin White. They did–along with offering a standing ovation for his efforts.
If the front office is talking about you during an intermission interview, your stock is certainly rising.
Continued; even if the Red Wings sign Piercey, he’s got another year of eligibility at the OHL level, and, in my opinion, he’d be best-served playing for the Flint Firebirds.
