Lockout Day 12- Positives— Prospects, Part 1
By gary2
February 25, 2011; Columbus, OH, USA; Columbus Blue Jackets ice crew girl cleans up hats from the ice after left wing Matt Calvert (not pictured) recorded a hat trick during the third period against the Phoenix Coyotes at Nationwide Arena. Mandatory Credit: Russell LaBounty-US PRESSWIRE
Quick prospecting joke.
There is a story about a man out prospecting for gold and the man fell down a pit-shaft. A Deputy found him and eventually got him out and asked ‘Have you broken anything?’
The man replied ‘No, there’s not much to break down here!’
Least we forget, the Blue Jackets have been very busy building up a talent pool in their younger player groups that is hopefully going to some day bring a Stanly Cup to Columbus, the city that many national sources kinda openly joke about relative to NHL hockey—AKA …… GO BUCKS
Prospect -Matt Calvert will be in Springfield[ as will the other Blue Jacket mighty mite, Cam Atkinson]
The above picture reminds us of Matt Calvert, a veteran of 55 NHL games. Matt has almost been written off by Blue Jacket fans. Why have we forgotten about him? Frankly because in 2010-1011 Mat was in 42 games and had 11 goals, but in 1011-2012 he was in 13 games with no goals, and was sent to Springfield. Where he was overshadowed by the other pint sized prospect Cam Atkinson.
The Blue Jackets have not written Matt off, but he is a good case for fans to remember, for several reasons.
[a] Matt had fairly good success shortly after being elevated to the NHL. His effectiveness seemed to diminish as his exposure to the NHL increased.
[b] Cam Atkinson also had good results when he joined the NHL. But it was late enough in the season that there was no time to see if his effectiveness waned after NHL exposure.
[c] Both are fairly small forwards. Most analysts feel Cam is not as subject to the success letdown, but only time and games on the ice[ in combat will tell]. My opinion is that it will be unlikely that Columbus would have 2 small forwards in the lineup for very long. One would probably go.
Well, negotiations are to re-convene today, All pre-season games cancelled. Here’s hoping there is some urgency in the attitudes within the negotiations.
In case you were wondering, The Everett Silvertips are 0-3 so far this year. Ryan Murray has 1 goal and 3 assists and is -5. Defense seems to be a problem, below is an article after the first 2 games.
Silvertips’ priority: Shore up the defense
By Nick Patterson, Herald Writer
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LYNNWOOD — The first weekend of the season may have been a rough one for the Everett Silvertips, but at least there were signs of progress on offense.
Now, the Tips need to get things sorted out at their own end of the ice.
Everett plays its first road games of the season when the Tips travel to face Tri-City tonight and Vancouver on Friday, and Everett’s priority is shoring up the leaks in its defense.
The Tips suffered two losses to Prince George last weekend in two very different ways. Everett was blown out 6-0 in Saturday’s season opener, then fell 7-6 in a shootout the next night despite leading by three in the third period.
The difference in Everett’s ability to score goals between the two games was night and day. However, when it came to preventing goals the Tips remained enveloped by the midnight darkness throughout the weekend.
“That’s way too many goals to give up,” Tips captain and defenseman Ryan Murray said Wednesday following practice at Lynnwood Ice Center. “You can’t be giving up that many goals, no matter how many you score. We’ve got to tighten up in our own end and put more of an effort and focus onto our defensive play.”
Both nights were rough ones for Everett’s goaltenders. Austin Lotz received the start on Saturday and allowed five goals on 23 shots before being lifted for Cole Holowenko at the start of the third period. Holowenko got the start the following night and allowed six goals on 38 shots, then allowed four of Prince George’s seven shooters to convert in the shootout. Both Lotz and Holowenko allowed goals they probably would want back.
However, Everett coach Mark Ferner wasn’t going to pin the blame on his netminders.
“We’re going to win as a team, we’re going to lose as a team,” Ferner said. “We’re not going to point fingers at anybody. We know we need to get better from our goalie out.
“We had some breakdowns, no question about it, but you’re going to have that with a pretty young group, especially defensively,” Ferner added. “We’ve talked about it, we’re working on it, and we’re going to have to continue to get better at it.”
In Sunday’s game, Everett led 6-3 with less than 12 minutes remaining. However, the Cougars got the ball rolling thanks to an Everett defensive breakdown that led to an odd-man rush. Then Prince George scored twice late in the period, both times on scrambles near the net following shots off the rush.
“Sometimes I think we got scrambly and weren’t collapsing on our own net,” Murray said. “We just kind of got sloppy in our own end. Not too many of their goals were us giving them open nets or turning pucks over. A lot of it was their creating chances where we were just scrambling out there, not knowing what to do. So we we really worked on that in practice.”
Now, the Tips are hoping to see that same progress in the defensive zone in game three from game two as they saw on the offensive end in game two from game one.
“The second game we were a lot better in a lot of areas, so we just have to continue to build on those things,” Ferner said. “We also know we have to work on some things in some other areas where we weren’t that good.”