Canucks Army Weekly Prospect Reportlet – May 16, 2014

Ontario Hockey League

• The OHL season is finally over and unfortunately Miles Liberati and his North Bay squad were not able to defeat the Guelph Storm. Despite being 2nd in the league in possession, North Bay took a 10-1 thrashing last Thursday, before being officially eliminated by Guelph with a 4-3 score on Friday.
• In the two games this week Liberati did not accrue a single counting stat. Even Anton Cederholm thinks that’s lame.
• On Friday, London will start the Memorial Cup playing Val-D’or.
• Check out the work Rhys and I did on OHL and WHL Quality of Competition and Quality of Teammates estimates. 
• Bo Horvat had an interview on TEAM1040 this week and prospects are always worth listening to, before the professional team’s PR staff gets a hold of them! It sounds like Horvat is admitting he was sick during the series against Guelph which is why his production has dropped. Which brings us to this weeks “Fake Controversy” —  with the way Horvat is pushing himself when he is sick it sounds like he does not truly care about his future with the Canucks nor about his commitment to his teammates. You heard it here first!  
• Dane Fox was named to the OHL First Team All-Star while the Province had a good article up on him.

Western Hockey League

• Similar to North Bay, the Portland Winterhawks were eliminated in the WHL final themselves but in a much more exciting manner. Despite being up 2-0, the Winterhawks found themselves tied 2-2. Then on Friday Edmonton won again 3-2. Sunday, facing elimination, the Winterhawks managed to climb back from a 5-2 deficit to tie the game and then win it in Overtime. The following day, facing elimination once again in a Game 7 scenario, the Hawks could not pull through and lost 4-2.  
• Cederholm had 1 goal in three games, as well as +1 and 4 PIMs.

Thoughts de Semaine

• So far at the IIHF World Championships Ronalds Kenins has been the best prospect with 4 assists, a +4 and 8 SOG in 4 games.
• Jensen has 1 goal, 1 assist, 6 PIM, a -2 and 3 SOG in 4 games.
• Eriksson has not yet played a game for Sweden, because Anders Nilsson is obviously just the best.
• It should also be pointed out that Hodgson has 4 goals, 1 assist in 4 games for Canada while Kassian has 0. Further proof that the Canucks lost that trade! The evidence is building up here, in a hurry.
• The Utica Comets talk about their three players playing in the IIHF Worlds. For some reason they include Yannick Weber, who played a total of 6 games for them this past season.
• There is an interesting article on VanCity Buzz about the apparent lack of work that Torterella has done while coaching. One thing that’s interesting from a prospects perspective is the lack of communication Torts has had with Travis Green, the Utica Comets coach. That is sort of contrasting what I’ve learned from Brendan M. Burke down in Utica, where Green has been in daily contact with Vancouver, though it’s just as likely Green has been communicating with someone in management or an assistant coach instead.
• Check out who has been drafted 6th overall in NHL History.
• McKeen’s Hockey has two good articles on upcoming prospects to watch out for in this draft that could be available for the Canucks!
• The AHL 2013/14 league Sv% average was .910 this year.  Eriksson had a .911 putting him above average while Cannata had a .907 placing him below average.
• As Kassian is an RFA this year, Pass it to Bulis looks at how much he will be worth. (Protip: Think just north of $1M a year).
• Can the Canucks use Burke’s scouting savvy? (No, not that Burke)
• Rumour this week was that Canucks have interest in Dennis Rasmussen which was covered by Dimitri – He was all but promised to PHI until now, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens of him given the regime change in Vancouver.
• The Canucks had interest in 20 yo Coquitlam Express captain Ryan Rosenthal but he’s going to attend the NJD training camp because he was born there. Express president says Smyl, Snepts and Ron Delorme all liked the kid and were very high on him (Courtesy: @News1130Sports)
• Hockey’s Future has dropped the Canucks’ prospect ranking down to 27th with key losses from Dalpe (Graduation), Steven Anthony and Adam Polasek.
• Today there was a press conference in Glenn’s Falls to introduce the Abbotsford Heat moving their and changing their name to the Adirondack Flames.