Werek Wrecking INC

When the New York Rangers used their 2nd round pick on Ethan Werek at the 2009 NHL Entry Draft barely a minute went by before I got emails telling me what a great pick the Rangers had just made. In all honesty I liked this pick even better than the selection of Chris Kreider in the first round since I had gotten to see Werek in his rookie OHL season.

Werek put up a 32-32-64 season on a last place Kingston Frontenac team in 2008-09 and many who knew Werek's game felt he would have been a first round pick on a better team. Kingston's struggles are the Ranger's gain as the future power forward for the Rangers is off to an even better start to this season.

On Sunday Werek helped his Frontenacs sweep a home and home series with the Ottawa 67's but scoring 2 goals and setting up the game winning goal in the 3rd period as the Fronts rallied for a 5-4 win. Our friends at Kingston have video of the highlights so take a look yourself at Ethan Werek (his goals are the 1st and 4th with assist on 5th).



If you watched the video then you saw Ethan Werek involved in just about every Kingston scoring play even the ones he did not receive any credit for. The 3 point effort was already the 4th time that Werek has had a multi-point game this season (8 games).

Ethan Werek was not the only one who earned himself a "First Star of the Game" as Ryan Bourque (2009 3rd) was also named one after his Quebec Remparts defeated the Val-d'Or Foreurs 6-3. The problem is that we would have given Bourque a "Second Star" not as a slight but because one of his teammates was more deserving.

Bourque scored his 4th goal of the season and had a strong all-around game with a couple of other good scoring chance and 2 good hits. His teammate Dmitri Kughryshev scored the winning goal and add 2 assists but his name was missing from the 3 stars and that bothers us.

Sometimes at this level "Stars of the Game" are more a popularity contest than an fair reflection of how well someone played. We would love to know the rational as to why Kughryshev was overlooked here.

As for Bourque, he finally appears as if he has fully recovered from his "concussion like" symptoms he suffered a couple of weeks ago.

Chris Doyle (2008 5th) scored his 5th goal of the season but that was all the offense Doyle's Prince Edward Island Rocket had in a 2-1 loss to the Lewiston MAINEiacs. Doyle had a game high 8 shots.

Luke Walker (Traverse City) and his Portland Winterhawks had a 3-0 lead, all was looking good until an innocent Everett goal with 3 seconds left in the first period. That goal was the start of 9 unanswered goals as Everett just blew the Winterhawks out of Washington with a 10-4 win.

For Everett it was a franchise record for goals scored in a game, for the Winterhawks the 4th game in 5 nights was nothing but a nightmare. Walker was a -3 and given a misconduct for his part in a fight at the end of the game.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO OUR GOOD FRIENDS IN CANADA, enjoy the day


(Pics: Ethan Werek/Ian MacAlpine, Kingston Whig-Standard, Bourque: Quebec Remparts)