Sunday, February 19, 2012

Does anybody want to win?

Okay we're going to start taking things personally if the New York Ranger and New York Islander prospects don't stop doing the opposite of the things we've been writing about for them.

 One has to feel sorry for the coaching staffs of the prospects because it must be driving them up the wall not knowing what kind of effort they will get from their players on any given night.

New York Rangers Star Andrew Yogan

It's nice to know that at least one prospect Andrew Yogan (NYR 2010 3rd) took what we said about him to heart at least for one night. Yogan either set up or scored on all 4 goals that his Peterborough Petes scored to defeat the Ottawa 67's 4-2.

It was exactly the kind of performance we have wanted to see from Yogan in his quest to earn a New York Ranger contract. Step up, make plays and lead his team to a playoff spot or in other words show us how bad you want it.

Saturday afternoon not sure who what lit the fire under Yogan but hope they do it more often. Peterborough got off to a real slow start as Ottawa jumped on them for two goals in the first and another in the second before the Petes responded.

Yogan set up Derek Mathers for the Petes first goal of the game coming at 12:35 of the second at even strength. 38 seconds later at 13:13 Yogan scored when Ottawa's goalie Petr Mrazek misplayed a puck and it wound up on Yogan's stick with a wide-open empty net.

In the third, Yogan set up Nick Ritchie for a power-play goal that tied the score at 3-3 with the goal coming at 1:40. Yogan got his four-point night when he broke the tie and gave Peterborough their first lead of the game coming at 14:32.

It wound up being the game-winning goal as the Petes thanks to the win jumped into 7th place of the OHL's Eastern Conference. For Yogan, he now is 4-5-9 in his last 3 games and has improved to 29-28-57 giving him new career highs in goals and points.

Now we really hope Yogan can keep this up. But we still had a mostly disappointing Saturday night for the Ranger prospects and you know you can find it by clicking right here.

New York Islanders Star Ryan Strome

Ryan Strome (NYI 2011 1st)
also had one of those nights where he too was involved in all of his Niagara IceDogs goals. Strome had a 2-1-3 evening to help his IceDogs earn a 3-0 shutout win over the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds.

It was an interesting evening for Strome as he set up Freddie Hamilton Co. what turned out to be the only goal that is IceDogs would actually need just 3:07 into the first on a power-play. Strome then added a goal in both the second and third periods as he IceDogs won their 2nd straight game and increased their lead in the OHL's Eastern conference to 3 points over Ottawa loss to Peterborough.

Strome extended his scoring streak to 12 games (7-16-23) as he is now 22-29-51. Strome was named the game's third star when he actually deserve better but he was called for a double minor. One of these days somebody's can explain to me in a logical manner how a player who gets called for a penalty when supposedly "victim" gets called for "diving."

Call me crazy but to me if you're accused of faking a penalty and yet they still call the penalty where is the logic in it? In our eyes if somebody is called for diving they should be the ones penalized not the other team.

As the IceDogs continue their outstanding play (now have the second best record in the OHL) it's going to be a fun dash to the finish to see which team winds up with the best record in the OHL.

As for the rest of the Islanders, a somewhat better Saturday then Friday was and you can read about it right here.

(Yogan and Strome- Aaron Bell of OHL Images)

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