Interim prospect stats thread

[icarus]

I assume Reggie or someone will be posting another epic 2009-10 prospects thread, but in the meantime for those of you who are eager for hockey to start like me, here's the news so far from the recently-begun WHL preseason.

Lance Bouma (VAN) - 1a (PP)
Ryan Howse (CWK) - 1g (ES)

From the Bruins site:

The home team built up a 2-0 lead midway through the second frame when Ryan Howse took a Horak feed at the top of the left slot, beat two Rockets skaters one on one before depositing the puck behind the Kelowna netminder.

[looooob]

Originally Posted by icarus

I assume Reggie or someone will be posting another epic 2009-10 prospects thread, but in the meantime for those of you who are eager for hockey to start like me, here's the news so far from the recently-begun WHL preseason.

Lance Bouma (VAN) - 1a (PP)
Ryan Howse (CWK) - 1g (ES)

From the Bruins site:

I have no idea whether Ryan Howse will become a good NHL player, but I have a feeling he is going to score alot of goals in the W this year

[jeremywilhelm]

I bet Kelowna will miss Backlund this year.

[Suave]

Joni Ortio with a win for Finland today over the Czechs, stopping 24 of 26 shots. This is U20 tournament involving Finland, Sweden, Russia and Czech Republic. Erixon is playing for the Swedish team but didn't get any points in their 4-2 win over the Russians.

http://217.119.36.75/mpublic/index.p...aa12fe59ad02e8

[Reggie Dunlop]

Originally Posted by icarus

I assume Reggie or someone will be posting another epic 2009-10 prospects thread...

Working on it!

[dustygoon]

Originally Posted by Suave

Joni Ortio with a win for Finland today over the Czechs, stopping 24 of 26 shots. This is U20 tournament involving Finland, Sweden, Russia and Czech Republic. Erixon is playing for the Swedish team but didn't get any points in their 4-2 win over the Russians.

http://217.119.36.75/mpublic/index.p...aa12fe59ad02e8

Good update....link is a dud

[icarus]

Nothing earth shattering, but from the Chiefs site:

Mitch Wahl had two goals and an assist and Levko Koper had a goal and a pair of helpers as Team Red defeated Team White in the Spokane Chiefs Annual Red-White Scrimmage. A crowd of 2,113 fans attended the free scrimmage that signified the end of the Chiefs pre-season camp.

[Suave]

Originally Posted by dustygoon

Good update....link is a dud

Hmm lets try this general one to the tournament website:
http://www.finhockey.fi/maajoukkueet...us_2-7_9_2009/

Erixon with a goal and an assist in Sweden’s 6-2 victory over the Czech Republic. Ortio got the night off today, will probably play against the Sweden tomorrow.

[kekkone]

Originally Posted by Suave

Hmm lets try this general one to the tournament website:
http://www.finhockey.fi/maajoukkueet...us_2-7_9_2009/

Erixon with a goal and an assist in Sweden’s 6-2 victory over the Czech Republic. Ortio got the night off today, will probably play against the Sweden tomorrow.

Erixon's goal was right after Sweden's powerplay had expired and it was very smart play by him. Henrik Eriksson had the puck in the corner and he slowed down the play and every player was freezed expect Erixon who sneaked closer to goal from blueline, Eriksson passed the puck across two Czech players and Erixon scored easily to the empty net. Hope you understood .

Erixon had also very good scoring chance in the next shift. Sweden had quick counter-attack and Erixon jumped into rush (which he did quite often) and he was nearly alone in front of net when he received pass but his shot went straight to goalie's chest. Again he had almost empty net in front of him but you can't score on every chance you get. How often does defence man score in back to back shifts anyway? Yep, very often. It was disappointed ending but thinking how he end up being nearly alone in front of net by leaving backcheckers behind and positioning himself perfectly is very impressive.

Erixon got his assist on his yet another jump on the rush. I believe he was behind the goal line when Klingberg scored.

Czech's first goal came up on 2 on 1 Erixon being that "1". Erixon covered the passing lane but Dolezal shooted and scored. It wasn't Erixon's fault and one might think where his defence partner was. Well, Rundblad was the last man coming back from offence. Rundblad joined offence more often than Erixon but difference between these two is that Erixon never got caught when he did it.

More to come tomorrow after Sweden faces Finland in tournament champion-decisive game. Ortio will propably start for Finland, IMO he was better than Kuusela in his respective game. Czech has terrible team and I'll make final judgements after tomorrow's game when Erixon and Ortio have faced true competition.

[JiriHrdina]

Great post

[dustygoon]

Originally Posted by kekkone

Erixon's goal was right after Sweden's powerplay had expired and it was very smart play by him. Henrik Eriksson had the puck in the corner and he slowed down the play and every player was freezed expect Erixon who sneaked closer to goal from blueline, Eriksson passed the puck across two Czech players and Erixon scored easily to the empty net. Hope you understood .

Erixon had also very good scoring chance in the next shift. Sweden had quick counter-attack and Erixon jumped into rush (which he did quite often) and he was nearly alone in front of net when he received pass but his shot went straight to goalie's chest. Again he had almost empty net in front of him but you can't score on every chance you get. How often does defence man score in back to back shifts anyway? Yep, very often. It was disappointed ending but thinking how he end up being nearly alone in front of net by leaving backcheckers behind and positioning himself perfectly is very impressive.

Erixon got his assist on his yet another jump on the rush. I believe he was behind the goal line when Klingberg scored.

Czech's first goal came up on 2 on 1 Erixon being that "1". Erixon covered the passing lane but Dolezal shooted and scored. It wasn't Erixon's fault and one might think where his defence partner was. Well, Rundblad was the last man coming back from offence. Rundblad joined offence more often than Erixon but difference between these two is that Erixon never got caught when he did it.

More to come tomorrow after Sweden faces Finland in tournament champion-decisive game. Ortio will propably start for Finland, IMO he was better than Kuusela in his respective game. Czech has terrible team and I'll make final judgements after tomorrow's game when Erixon and Ortio have faced true competition.

Really appreciate the update. Glad to hear Erixon got involved in the play.

[dustygoon]

Originally Posted by Suave

Hmm lets try this general one to the tournament website:
http://www.finhockey.fi/maajoukkueet...us_2-7_9_2009/

Erixon with a goal and an assist in Sweden’s 6-2 victory over the Czech Republic. Ortio got the night off today, will probably play against the Sweden tomorrow.

That works......looks like Ortio is getting lit up a little bit.

[kekkone]

Sweden won the tournament by defeating Finland 5-3. Erixon had no points.

Notes on Erixon from two games I saw.

- First and most important comment on his play is how smart he is. From first shift to the end of game he shows smart positioning, smart passing and the whole way he read the game was top notch. There's players who might look good and make smart moves in single shifts but cause terrible giveaway in the next but Erixon isn't that way. He was very consistent from shift to shift and never seemed to get into big trouble (wasn't flashy either though).

- Sometimes perfect positioning isn't enough if opponent is better skater and just flies by and forces slower skater to take hooking penalty. Erixon is a very good skater and not single time opponent beat him in skating race. Many small and speedy opponent's tried it but Erixon never fell behind. And to add Erixon's good size and long reach he was able to pokecheck the puck away and he often got the loose puck by using his frame as a screen to block opponent from getting the puck again.

- Pokechecking was big part of Erixon's defensive play.

- But physical play was not. We know that Lidström rarely hits or uses physical play as a factor but IMO Erixon could play little more physically, at least hit when he has good chance, now he little bit shied away from boards and rather kept himself close to net just using his stick as weapon to get the puck. Dunno if I go too far here but maybe he was too nice as he wasn't aggressive at all. Positiong and skating are the biggest parts of defensive play and physical presence is small factor compared to those two but once he comes over to North America he needs to learn how to use body contact as part of defensive play. Erixon is granted by big body and after he bulks up a little bit he should be capable of handling big powerforwards in the NHL.

Lack of physical play and aggressiveness is propably his biggest weakness. Someone needs to send him compilation of Regehr's biggest hits!!111

- In previous post I mentioned his will to jump into rush but he didn't do it as much against Finland, he did it few times but didn't get scoring chances. Sweden pretty much dominated against Czech and they almost did anything they wanted but todays game was different. Erixon is defence-first guy and maybe he didn't want to take risk as Finland is good in counter-attacks. Can't blame him for thinking defence first but so does Lidström. Believe it or not that (former) 80 point d-man is defence-first guy.

- But. We are expecting him to put up points too. I have read ppl to expect Erixon to score around 35-40 points in his prime and that's somewhat lot of offence. So, I was little disappointed on his offensive play. It's not his play on powerplay, he did well on powerplay. It's not his jumps into rush to the second wave, he did that and had scoring chances too. But it's his passing. Don't get me wrong, he did pass tape to tape and those passes were hard. But those passes were easy ones and he often passed to Rundblad to his side instead of forwards who were leaning into forward. Again, maybe he was thinking safer option instead of taking risk. But because Erixon is so smart and good passer he's capable of giving breakout passes or at least quicker passes which cause always-dangerous counter-attacks.

That was my another issue with him. Playing safe game without risks although he's able to give more challenging passes which would bring bigger reward.

- From passing to shooting. Nothing to complain here. On powerplay he did more passing but had few hard shots. Just few so I can't judge his shot further. It's positive though that his shots didn't end up to first blocking player. Dion, I'm looking at you.

- Another plus comes from on ice leadership. He talked with his teammates a lot and give them instructions, both before faceoffs and during play.

To sum it up, it's looking very good for Erixon and for the Flames for picking him. I won't comment his potential, two games isn't enough for creating strong enough conclusion for his future. But I can tell you he was at the same level with Rundblad and Ekman-Larsson in this tournament.

[FoxMulder91]

Was Ortio in net for Finland today? How did he look?

[kekkone]

Originally Posted by FoxMulder91

Was Ortio in net for Finland today? How did he look?

Sorry, I was too thrilled with Erixon that I forgot Ortio . Yep, Ortio was in the net but he had poor game and Silfverberg's GWG was totally his mistake. It was failed shot from nearly right after blue line and it slipped through Ortio's five hole. Maybe he didn't expect it to come along the ice as he didn't get quick enough in butterfly. He showed good athleticism and quick glove hand but that time he wasn't quick enough and it cost Finland tournament victory (it was shorthanded goal too). Rebound control is his weakness and maybe blocker hand too, I'm not good at analyzing goalies.

[FoxMulder91]

Thanks for all the information!
One last question..Bjorklund led the J-20 Nordic Cup in points and apparently dominated..but was not able to make this team..looking back should Bjorklund have made the U20 team?

[kekkone]

Originally Posted by FoxMulder91

Thanks for all the information!
One last question..Bjorklund led the J-20 Nordic Cup in points and apparently dominated..but was not able to make this team..looking back should Bjorklund have made the U20 team?

Poster on HFBoards said Björklund was left out because their coach wanted to test few other players. I'm not convinced about that both I hope he's right.

[icarus]

WHL preseason continues

Portland vs Spokane on Friday night saw a PP assist for Spencer Bennett and an ES assist for Mitch Wahl.

Last night (Sunday), Mitch Wahl scored a goal in a 3-0 victory over Seattle.

[FoxMulder91]

Im expecting Wahl to take a big step forward this year..Last year he scored 32 goals, 12 more then the year previous, but he had 18 less assists..which equaled 6 less points.

Last year in 12 playoff games he had 11 assists and 2 goals.

He has goal scoring and playmaking abilities he just needs to find a balance, which I think he will be able to do this year.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by kekkone

Sorry, I was too thrilled with Erixon that I forgot Ortio .

A Finn who puts the Flames ahead of Finns!