The Learning Curve

The best part about covering New York Ranger and New York Islander prospects is getting to discover and learn about the new prospects. Every year we get to see new prospects chasing their dream of becoming an NHL player.

This year this baby-faced young man goes by the name of Peter Ceresnak and this image is so misleading. Ceresnak is a huge 6'3 200+ defender from Trencin Slovakia and the Rangers gave up their 2012 6th rounder pick to the Nashville Predators in order to select Ceresnak.

Ceresnak as well as the Rangers 2010 3rd round pick Andrew Yogan made their debut as members of the Peterborough Petes as they took on the Mississauga St. Micheal's Majors. The Petes put up a good fight before losing in the shoot out 4-3.

Ceresnak scored his 1st OHL goal when he scored at 1:49 of the 2nd period on a power play to give the Petes a 1-0 lead. Ceresnak looks like he is adapting to playing in North America as we see his biggest learning curve here is going to be his decision making speed.

We like how Ceresnak is showing a willingness to learn and it was Ceresnak who said he wanted to come play in North America that led the Rangers to make the deal  to be able to draft him. It will be interesting to watch Ceresnak as the season progresses to see how much improvement he makes.

Andrew Yogan had a quiet evening in his debut for the Petes but here is why Yogan is going to either drive us insane. Yogan by all rights should score at least 30 goals this season as he has some quality teammates to work with.

Yogan has to simply play a simple game and not look for the fancy moves, we would show him tape of Steve Fogarty and JT Miller's play from last night as both players just went right for the net. If Yogan can do that then he will put up some huge numbers.

Peterborough because of their management team is ideal for these 2 Ranger prospects. Mike Pelino besides being a former Ranger assistant has a long list of accomplishments coaching junior players winning medals/championships 11 times at various medals.

Christian Thomas (NYR 2010 2nd) made his return to the Oshawa Generals but it was a disappointing one as the Generals despite out shooting the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds 38-19 lost at home 3-2. The Generals just could not solve Greyhound goalie Matt Murray and even worse went 1 for 11 on the power play.

In Guelph, Islander 2011 3rd round pick Andrey Petan sat out a mandatory suspension for being the 3rd man in during a fight from the other night. Petan went to the aid of a rookie teammate who was being outmatched in a fight.

Out west, Ranger prospect Michael St. Croix (2011 4th) made his season's debut with the Edmonton Oil Kings as they faced off against Islander prospect John Persson (2011 5th) and his Red Deer Rebels.  It was the season opener for the Oil Kings and it was not happy one for the Oil Kings as they lost 4-3 in overtime.

The Oil Kings jumped up to a 2-0 first period lead before Persson set up the Rebel's first goal of the game to cut the lead to 1. In the 2nd period after the Oil Kings had jumped out to a 3-1 lead; Persson scored his 1st goal of the season on the power play.

Persson earned the game's 3rd star for his 1-1-2 efforts (1-2-3 on the season) as Red Deer is now 2-0 on the season.

(Ceresnak/New York Rangers,  Persson/New York Islanders)