Prospect of the Week

If you did not expect to see Bobby Sanguinetti named as our Prospect Park Player of the Week this week then you must have been asleep for the past week. Unlike previous weeks where the decision to name someone as the PPP required some thought this week there was no doubt at all.

It started last Thursday as Sanguinetti playing against his former team the Owen Sound Attack earned the game's "Third Star" with a goal and an assist as his Brampton Battalion won 7-2.

The next night (Friday) against the Sudbury Wolves, Sanguinetti earn the game's "Second Star" by scoring an unassisted shorthanded goal and adding two assists but his Battalion lost in overtime 4-3.

Sanguinetti had Saturday night off which he spent watching the Rangers play against the Toronto Maple Leafs. We found out after the fact how important attending that game was to him because it set up a Sunday to remember.

On Sunday, Sanguinetti had what truly was his best performance of his OHL career as Sanguinetti posted his second 5 point performance of the season in his Battalion's 7-1 win over Mississauga. A 4 goal, 1 assist that earned Sanguinetti the game's "First Star", the OHL's Boston Pizza Player of the Week and another Prospect Park Player of the week award.

All in all Sanguinetti had 6 goals and 4 assists during the past week to bring his season totals up to a very impressive 15-19-34 in 20 games. It is interesting to note that last week at this time we were announcing that Sanguinetti was the winner of the very first "Dean Prentice Prospect Of the Month" award.

Sanguinetti emailed us his thanks for the Ranger fans voting for him to win this award and instead of a letdown goes out and has a week like he just did. Normally after a player wins an award of any type you tend to see a bit of a letdown but not with Sanguinetti.

It is clear that Sanguinetti is on several different missions all with one goal in mind which is to make the Ranger roster for next season. Sanguinetti told us that he attended the Ranger game against the Maple Leafs on Saturday which as Sanguinetti told us "really fired me up for Sunday".

We also have to give a lot of the credit to the Brampton Battalion, a team who we got to discover last season when one of our favorite's Dalyn Flatt played for them. If there ever was the ideal team for Sanguinetti to play for while helping his development it was the Troop.

Much has been already said about how the Battalion coach Stan Butler has developed NHL lever defensemen. It goes beyond Stan Butler as the entire Battalion franchise and community is an ideal place for a young prospect to develop at.

When we talked to Gord Clark this past summer, Clark said something about how he likes to see a young player really dominate his league for a season before advancing to the next level. What Sanguinetti is doing is a textbook example of domination.

Here is the really scary part if you have to face Sanguinetti though, we believe that Sanguinetti is just getting warmed up. We have this feeling that as the season wears on that Sanguinetti is so focused upon living out his dream of playing for the Rangers that he is going to get even better.

We are not trying to put more pressure on Sanguinetti but rather realizing that we are seeing the beginning of a very exceptional future Ranger. At the beginning of this season when we said we expected to Sanguinetti to have a breakout season we were thinking in terms of an 80 point season.

Sanguinetti it appears has higher numbers in mind

(Sanguinetti picture courtesy of the Brampton Battalion)