Give and take

Michael St. Croix (Edmonton Oil Kings)

Sunday was a pretty quiet day for the New York Ranger and New York Islander prospects with just 4 games on the schedule. It was not a perfect day as while some prospects were productive at the same time they hurt their own teams too.

It was the Edmonton Oil Kings taking on the Calgary Hitmen a day after Michael St. Croix (NYR 2011 4th) and Griffin Reinhart (NYI 2012 1st) were the 1st and 2nd stars. You can pretty much guess where I am going here as one day's heroes can quickly turn into tomorrow's goats which was the case here.

Michael St. Croix sent the game into overtime with his 5th goal of the season, a power play goal (his 3rd) with just 40 seconds left in regulation. St. Croix also had a secondary assist to bring his season totals to 5-5-10 but he and his linemates were on the ice for 2 Calgary goals.

Griffin Reinhart had it even rougher as the captain of the Oil Kings was sitting in the penalty box when Calgary scored the game winner with 49 seconds remaining in overtime. It was Calgary's 1st power play goal of the game after failing to score on 6 previous attempts.

Calgary walks away with a 6-5 overtime win, their 2nd win over the Oil Kings and to rub salt in the Oil Kings wounds; the win pushed the Hitmen into 1st place in the WHL's Central Division.

It may be October but it is never too early to think playoff tiebreakers with division rivals. The 2 teams will play for the 3rd time on Friday.

Loic Leduc (NYI 2012 4th) and his Cape Breton Screaming Eagles were looking for a 3 game winning streak but were denied by the Val-d'Or Foreurs 7-3. Again we are looking at 3 games in 3 days and once again the team playing 3 in 3 lost.

Leduc took a double minor which Val-d'or turned into their 6th goal of the game. Leduc was also -1 one 1 shot to go along with his 4 PIMs.

10th ranked Notre Dame opened their 2012-2013 season with an exhibition game against the US Under-18 squad. Notre Dame and Team USA skated to a 1-1 overtime tie with Notre Dame earning the extra point by winning the shootout round 2-1 (5 rounds).

Islander prospects center Anders Lee (2009 6th) and defenseman Robbie Russo (2011 4th) didn't score as Lee (5 shots) and Russo (2 shots 1 block) were on the ice for USA's goal. Lee also missed his shootout attempt but was 8-5 on faceoffs.

Ranger prospect center Steven Fogarty (2011 3rd) also was scoreless on 2 shots (did have 1 block) and went 3-4 on his faceoffs. Fogarty was making his NCAA debut was the 1st shooter for Notre Dame in the shoot out and he missed as well.

Goalie Cody Rosen (NYI 2010 7th) was not the starter for the Clarkson Golden Knights but came in at the start of the 2nd period after the starter gave up 4 goals on 6 shots. Rosen played the final 2 periods giving up 2 goals on 14 shots as Clarkson dropped an exhibition game to Carleton 6-2.