Tonight's Star JT Miller
If there is any prospect who is doing a very good job of making fans out of his critics then it has to be the Ranger's 2011 first round pick. On draft day, Miller's selection was questioned by just about everyone (including us) but since then JT Miller's efforts have helped validate the selection the Rangers made.
Miller made sure his first career OHL goal was a statement goal as the native of Pittsburgh PA scored at 11:45 of the 3rd period to help his Plymouth Whalers earn a 3-2 win over the Ottawa 67's.
Miller who was named the game's 2nd star as he also had an assist on Plymouth's first goal of the game too. The Miller goal (which can be found right here) is exactly what we were talking about the other day about KISS.
Miller found a spot where he wanted to shoot from, put himself into a great spot for his teammate to hit with a pass then just fired the puck in the same motion. No chance for the defense to react, the goalie was not fully set so the puck was able to sneak in the 5 hole.
Those are the kinds of goals that win games which this one did and exactly why a prospect will always get points from us for this kind of play. Miller now is 1-2-3 in 2 games with the Whalers who have also won 2 straight.
The Rest Of The Action
Andrew Yogan (NYR 2010 3rd) and Peter Ceresnak (NYR 2011 6th) were both scoreless as their Peterborough Petes improved to 3-0-0-1 with a 2-1 win over the Kingston Frontenacs. The Petes are leading the OHL East Division but had tougher than should have game against the Frontenacs.
Christian Thomas (NYR 2010 2nd) and his Oshawa Generals are struggling as they fell 2-1 to the Belleville Bulls. Thomas and the Generals are having trouble trying to find their offense as witnessed by the 0 for 7 on the power play.
The Generals this year are playing a 17 year old rookie in goal so you can see the team making a conscious effort to play stronger on defense. Thomas we see is pressing perhaps a tad too much to carry the team and we think he just needs to let the game come to him.
The goals will start coming and when they do we still believe Thomas is going to put up huge numbers this season. No need to panic over a 1-2 start for the Generals as they have a lot of talent on their roster.
Mitchell Theoret (Islanders 2011 7th) was scoreless but his Niagara IceDogs jumped out to a 3-0 first period lead and never looked back en-route to a 4-2 win over the Barrie Colts. The IceDogs won for the 1st time this season even without Ryan Strome (Islanders 2011 1st) in their lineup.
Strome is still with the Islanders and whether he returns to Niagara remains to be seen. The IceDogs are a good team but a Ryan Strome makes them a contending team.
Andrey Pedan (Islanders 2011 5th) was sitting out the 2nd game of his 2 game suspension for being the 3rd man in a fight. Against the Erie Otters, his Guelph Storm teammates made sure he did not worry about possibly losing without Pedan in the lineup.
The Storm turned a 3-2 second period lead into a 10-2 rout scoring 7 unanswered goals after the Otters had scored their 2nd goal. Overall the Storm improved to 2-1-0-1 on the season.
In the BCHL, Steven Fogarty (NYR 2011 3rd) was scoreless with 2 minor penalties as his Pentiction Vees had no trouble with the Prince George Spruce Kings after a 9-2 rout. Fogarty already has 2 goals on the season so not going to make anything about this one.
For those wondering what happened to Randy McNaught (NYR 2010 7th) after a pretty good effort at Traverse City we have an answer. McNaught choose to enroll at the University of Calgary and when you look at it then it actually is a pretty good idea.
The Rangers still hold McNaught's draft rights but McNaught was a long range project to turn him from a goon into a complete player. McNaught is in a league (Canada West) which is a very talented one but one that does not allow fighting.
So the Rangers can sit back and watch McNaught's progress over the next couple of years and it does not cost them a cent. FYI one of McNaught's coaches is former Ranger Cory Cross.
McNaught made his debut on Friday night but like the rest of his Dino teammates was shut out as the University of Manitoba Bison ruined their conference home opener with a 2-0 shutout. It was a team wide lifeless effort but not the kind of debut McNaught had hoped for.
The best way to describe the game that Michael St. Croix (NYR 2011 4th) and his Edmonton Oil Kings played against Medicine Hat Tigers is to think Glen Sather coached Rangers. Forgetting to show up for game time, allowing the other guys to build a big lead then mount a furious comeback that was "too little, too late".
Medicine Hat built up a 5-0 lead that was capped off by Emerson Etem's shorthanded goal for Etem's first hat trick of the season at 8:40 of the 3rd period. The Oil Kings then scored 3 goals in 3:33 to make it a 5-3 game but that was as close as they got.
St. Croix was scoreless and a -3 for the night but he was not to blame as we say this was a team wide stinker. Edmonton is now 1-1-1 on the season as they travel to Medicine Hat for the 2nd half of this home and home.
John Persson (Islanders 2011 5th) and his Red Deer Rebels turned a 2-1 3rd period lead into a 4-2 loss on the road to the Saskatoon Blades. Persson was scoreless and a -2 for his night as the Blade scored 3 times in the 3rd for the win.
Going Mobile
Earlier today we posted a piece about the Prospect Park going Mobile
The Prospect Park has now gone mobile! Go to http://www.noticeorange.com/r/TheProspectPark to get an app for your phone.
It's free and it has alerts so that you'll know whenever The Prospect Park has anything new. What could be better? We hope to have it up and running in the next 24 hours.
We are wanting to make it interactive so those of you with live in game questions or wanting to submit your own game reports/images can
It is a work in progress so we will improving it as we go along
Only problem is the app has not finished yet so our automatic message jumped the gun. For that we apologize but the goals do remain the same as with the app we hope to be able to interact with you better while we are at games.
Not every arena is up to date with the latest in technology but our hope is that the app will allow us to not have to rely on the arenas and get our reports out faster. It has a twitter feature and once things are set we hope to add Facebook as well.
Got to give a stick tap to our friends at Yardbarker who along with Fox Sports have been taking great care of us with the gadgets. What makes Yardbarker that much nicer is that they give us the freedom to say what we want when we want and not have to worry about "big brother."
Even sweeter is that when you visit they pay us for that visit which is even nicer since the money made helps us off-set the costs in bringing the prospects to you.
The folks at Notice Software are building our app for us with the goal to have it up and running at the beginning of next week. We hope you will try it out and give us the feedback we need to get the bugs out of it.
(Miller courtesy of the Plymouth Whalers)
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