Today's Special Campbell's Soup

The last game before the holiday break has various names but our preference has been "the sugar plum" game. We like it because it could be really sweet when you win or badly sour for a loss.

For Ranger prospect Max Campbell (2007 5th) this Christmas will be much merrier than it was last season. Last year Campbell was struggling, finding himself in th doghouse, the press box and finally the outhouse as instead of a breakout season, Campbell regressed to 6-13-19 in 34 games.

Merry Christmas Max as his Western Michigan Broncos finished their 2010 part of their season with a weekend sweep of 10th ranked Union College with a 3-1 win. If you read us yesterday then you know that this sweep could pay huge dividends coming down to NCAA selection time.

This win alone moved WMU up to 18th in "Pairwise" rankings that are very key when it comes to "at large" selections. Even better is that at 10-6-4 with a 5-2-1 record against ranked teams after last season's 8-20-8, this season is an improvement.

Campbell on the personal side got WMU going with his 9th goal of the season at 10:41of the first period for a 1-0 lead and the Bronco never looked back. Campbell is 9-9-18 in 20 games as he fights to rebuild his prospect status.

Maybe Santa will leave Campbell an ATO for the Whale in his stocking.

On Sunday, Christian Thomas (NYR 2010 2nd), Tony DeHart (NYI 2010 5th) and their Oshawa Generals went with the "it is better to give than receive" mindset against the Ottawa 67's on Sunday. The Generals gave away a 3-0 first period lead at home and lost 4-3 in the shootout.

Thomas and DeHart were gift givers in this game as the duo teamed up twice to set up back to back Oshawa goals 30 seconds apart. First Thomas and DeHart set up Lucas Lessio for a power play goal at 17:25 and 2-0 Oshawa lead.

Then exactly 30 seconds later at 17:55, Thomas and DeHart did it again but this time it was Andy Andreoff who got the goal for a 3-0 Oshawa lead and at the time it really looked like a rout was on.

Uh no as Ottawa showed why they lead the OHL's East Division as this was a traditional 4 point game as instead of cutting Ottawa's division lead to 4 points, the Generals find themselves down 8.

Thomas enters the holiday break on a run as while his 4 game scoring streak end, it turns into a 5 game scoring streak at 25-19-44 on the season which also makes him the leading scorer among Ranger prospects.

DeHart improved to 2-16-18 as he makes a case to stay with Oshawa or become attractive to another team.

We are going to take a day off so we can spend time watching video of the European teams playing in the upcoming World Under-20 championships. As soon as we have breakdowns to share we will because our gut is telling us this is not the year of North America.

(Campbell/WMU, Thomas/Oshawa)