White Hot

The 2011-2012 prospect season has already become the season of the red hot scoring streaks for both New York Ranger and New York Islander prospects. Just as we think we have seen the best of the streaks then someone else comes along with something that tops what everyone else has done.

Steven Fogarty (NYR 2011 3rd) is this week's surprise as he ended his week with 2-2-4 Sunday to lead his Penticton Vees to an 8-5 win over the Trail Smoke Eaters. Fogarty earned the game's first star with his first 4 point performance of his BCHL career.

Fogarty got his game going when he set up Bryce Gervais for Penticton's first lead of the game at 1:58 of the 2nd period at 2-1. That was Fogarty's 15th assist of the season and Penticton never trailed again.

At 9:10, Fogarty set up Gervais for his 2nd goal of the game and a 3-1 lead for the Vees. After the Vees added 2 more goals, Fogarty got the first of his two when he scored a power play goal at 18:11 for a 6-1 lead for the Vees.

That 6th goal also proved to be the game winning goal as in the 3rd period Trail scored 3 straight goals to cut Penticton's lead to 6-4. Fogarty struck for his 2nd goal of the game and 4th point when he scored at 10:11 to make it a 7-4 lead and the Smoke Eaters never got closer than 3 goals.

Fogarty with his BCHL career high performance becomes the new leader among the Ranger prospects at 14-16-30. This has been quite the week for Fogarty as he has in 4 games gone 5-7-12 as he extends his own scoring streak to 6 games (7-10-17).

Anyone want to guess who the Ranger prospect of the week is going to be?

In the OHL, Ryan Strome (NYI 2011 1st) and Mitchell Theoret (NYI 2011 7th) both were held scoreless as their Niagara IceDogs saw their 3 game winning streak stopped by the Ottawa 67's 5-2. The IceDogs held a 45-20 advantage in shots but it did not matter  as Ottawa scored the 1st 4 goals of the game and cruised from there.

It says something when you earn the game's first star on the road in a game that you lost but that is what happened in London Ontario as Scott Stajcer (NYR 2009 5th) despite suffering a 3-2 overtime loss to the London Knights. Stajcer stopped 46 out of 49 shots as his Owen Sound Attack just made their goalie face 12 power plays including the last one in overtime.

Stajcer gave up just 1 goal at even strength as he suffered his 2nd overtime loss of the season to bring his record to 3-3-2-1 241 Goals Against and a 0.929 Save Percentage. That 2.41 GAA is 5th in the OHL so what will Owen Sound do with Stajcer keep him or trade him?

In all honesty we would like Owen Sound to do something because Stajcer needs to play as much as possible.

In the WHL, Dylan McIlrath (NYR 2010 1st) had a 2 assist +3 game for his Moose Jaw Warriors but the Warriors still found a way to lose to the Brandon Wheat Kings 7-6 in overtime. This was a wild game as Moose Jaw blew a 2-0 lead and then a 6-3 lead.

McIlrath had a primary and a second assist both coming in the 2nd period during a 1:11 span. For McIlrath he improves to 2-6-8 on the season.

Samuel Noreau (NYR 2011 5th) had a secondary assist for his 9th assist of the season and 10th point overall but his Baie-Comeau Drakkar lost 5-2 to the Chicoutimi Sagueneens. The Drakkar lost for the 8th time in their last 10 games.

Finally Brock Nelson (NYI 2010 1st) and his North Dakota Fighting Sioux ended the weekend with a 1-0 loss to Bemidji State. North Dakota just could not hit the back of the net going 0 for 6 on their power plays.

(Fogarty - NHL Media)