Sunday Fun

First Star

What ever was wrong with David Skokan that left him out of the lineup for his Rimouski Oceanic is very much gone and healed up. Skokan who missed the last 2 games with some sort of a muscle injury made a huge return on Sunday afternoon.

Skokan and his Oceanic hosted the Drummondville Voltigeurs in QMJHL action and defeated them 5-3.

Skokan had his best all-around game of the season 2 goals (including the game winner), 2 assists, +2, 11-10 on his faceoffs, 3 good scoring chances on 4 shots and even 1 good hit. Anyone surprised that Skokan was named the game's first star?

Skokan's goals were his 13th and 14th on the season as with his 2 assists, Skokan is now 14-20-34 which tied his career best for goals, is 1 assist and 1 point from tying his QMJHL highs.
For Skokan, his return could not have come at a better time as with the win Rimouski was able to jump from 9th to 7th in the playoff seedings. Skokan's play has been a big factor in the turnaround that the Oceanic have had in the last month.

We expect to see Skokan joining Hartford as soon as his season ends with the Oceanic.

Second Star

Maybe our standards for Bobby Sanguinetti are higher because we know what he is going to do but still a 2 goal, 1 assist game is not a bad effort for the future Ranger defenseman.

Sanguinetti and his Brampton Battalion had an easy 6-1 win over the Ottawa 67's as Sanguinetti very much was the difference maker in this game. The game's First Star had a hand in the first 3 Battalion goals.

Sanguinetti got his day started with an assist and then added back to back power play goals (his 24th and 25th) to give his Battalion a 3-0 lead that put the game away in the first period.

Sanguinetti is 25-38-63 in 53 games which is just 2 points below his career high set during his draft season. Sanguinetti is also 4-2-6 in his last 3 games and a 7-5-12 for the month. We will not say maybe a future Ranger star we will say here is the REAL DEAL.

63 points from a defenseman is going to get people to think about Brian Leetch and while we will not put that kind of pressure on him there is nobody else we can compare his offensive skills to.

Still More Sunday Prospect Fun

Normally we love it when the teams with Ranger prospects win but when the win is the result of a blown call then it takes the fun away. In this case we are talking about Billy Ryan and his Maine Blackbear's 5-4 overtime win over UMass.

In the game that was televised on ESPNU, a missed icing call led directly to the game winning goal ruining what really was a fun hockey game to watch. The Blackbears jumped out to a 4-1 lead heading into the 3rd period only to watch a hard fought comeback from the Minutemen to rally and tie forcing the overtime.

If you go strictly by the scoresheet then Ryan had a quiet game but we saw Ryan simply as snakebit as he had several scoring chances including 2 in the overtime period but simply did not score on them. The one we believe Ryan will be seeing in his sleep is fanning on a wide open net no more than 5 feet away.

Danny Hobbs was scoreless but his Ohio Junior Bluejackets earned a 2-1 win over the Sioux City Musketeers on the road to stop a 2 game losing streak.

Overall a great day for Ranger prospects as they are stepping up their efforts as teams are fighting for playoff positioning.

(Skokan picture: Rimouski Oceanic, Sanguinetti/Brampton Battalion)