Canucks Weekly Prospect Report

Following Canuck Prospects is one of my interests (inspired by the guys over at Bolt Prospects), and something I’ve started paying a lot more attention to. While the title is a work in project right now, I hope to write a weekly update on the status of all the Canuck prospects, Utica Comets and anything else related. Based on the prospects series this site ran back in the summer, it’s clear that you guys are interested in keeping tabs on how the future Canucks are doing in their endeavors. 

Where I can I will try and provide some analytical stuff as well, but in some of these leagues even finding the box score can be difficult. Follow me at @nuckprospects as I try and keep up with the latest in prospect news.  I will try and cover the guys in the system that you don’t often see on TV; sure, Zac Dalpe may be considered a prospect and you technically don’t really see him on your TV, but he is outside of the scope of this report.

The OHL is the league that has been the most active so far with many teams having played a handful of games. Most notably is Bo Horvat who has done extremely well in his first three games back in the OHL while Canucks Army #1 Prospect Brendan Gaunce isn’t hurting either and finally scored his first goal in the OHL this year. Jordan Subban’s point totals still look impressive but it is a small sample size so far. Even McEneny has been hurt and has been listed as day to day so he hasn’t been playing in the last few games

In the WHL Hunter Shinkaruk continues to dominate and his name keeps appearing night after night in my twitter feed. He had a really nice short handed goal last night as in the video I linked above. Anton Cederholm hasn’t done too badly with his transition to the smaller ice. I am trying to see if I can get some scouting reports on these players.

Anton Rodin is still listed as a Canuck prospect and he is over in the SHL playing for Brynas along side Bill Sweat. The SHL is already 1/5th of the way through their season and in 10 games so far Rodin has scored 2 goals, 8 assists, with 8 PIM, a -1 and 7 Hits. Not much else to say about him.

Three Utica Comet players were assigned to the ECHL this last week and a bit. Goalie Corbeil was assigned to the St Charles Chill, alongside Steven Anthony. This means that Cannata and Eriksson will be starting out in Utica. Adam Polasek was sent down to Kalamazoo yesterday.

The opening roster for the Utica Comets has been set at 25 players. The forwards are Archibald, Blomstrand, DeFazio, Ferriero, Friesen, Grenier, Hamill, Lain, Mallet, Pacan, Pelletier, Stuart and Welsh. On defence will be Andersson, Biega, Blain, Corrado, Guimond, Mullen, Negrin, Polasek, Sauve, and Tommernes.

Utica has not yet opened their regular season but the Comets did play in 4 pre-season games winning one of them. Their first game will be tonight in Rochester.  You can read the pre-game report here. So far in pre-season the comets have lost 5-2 to Abbotsford, 6-0 to Hershey, and 1-0 to Hamilton while beating Adirondack 4-2.  You can follow their live play by play twitter feed at @CometsInGame.

I plan to watch the Comets closely and will be able to go to a couple games this season.

Five prospects are currently on the roster to play for NCAA teams. No games of the regular season have started yet, the first games for most teams will be this weekend. Joseph Labate did play in a scrimmage game and managed to score and goal and was the first shooter in the shootout.

Stan Smyl was named the Director of Player Development today for the Canucks who finally managed to place someone in that position.

We’re just over a week or so into the hockey season so not too much is happening here in North America. The OHL and WHL are underway with Canuck 1st rounders performing quite well. It’s only been a handful of games so hopefully it’s not just a Small Sample Size issue but rather forecasting good news for the Canucks.