Spector on Top Prospects Game: It matters
Posted January 18, 2011 10:35 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It is the last time these players will play in an All-Star game that works. The kind of game that brings out best in the best players – and the kind of game that is always worth watching.
With the National Hockey League’s All-Star game set for Jan. 30 in Raleigh, NC, you can expect a landslide of copy questioning the merit of what has become a non-contact love-in among the NHL’s top players.
If you want a template of what the big boys’ All-Star game should look like however, then sit down on Tuesday night and take in the Home Hardware CHL-NHL Top Prospects Game live from the Air Canada Centre in Toronto.
“It’s going to be a high energy game. Physical – not even close to the (NHL) All-Star game,” said Gabriel Landeskog of the Kitchener Rangers. “These are the 40 best prospects, competing for the draft.”
Alas, Landeskog won’t be one of them. The No. 1 rated North American (based) player won’t be playing in the Prospects game, still on the shelf with the high-ankle sprain that caused him to miss all but one game of the World Junior tournament for Sweden.
The shame is, by all accounts this game should be right up the rugged Swede’s alley.
For instance, last season there were two fights in the Prospect’s game, before Brock Beukeboom crushed eventual No. 2 draft pick Tyler Seguin with a huge hit. “That was the farthest thing from an All-Star game,” No. 1 pick Taylor Hall mused afterwards.
“They’re out to prove they’re better than where they’re rated, or every bit as good as where (Central Scouting) has them. These kids, they know who’s rated where,” said Hockey Canada’s head scout, Kevin Prendergast. “With Seguin and Hall, you could tell they were both out to prove a point last year. It’ll be the same this year. There will be a lot of kids rated in the second round who want to prove they’re first-rounders.”
The Home Hardware CHL-NHL Top Prospects Game can be seen Wednesday only on Sportsnet starting at 7 p.m. ET | Check the TV schedule
Seventeen players from last year’s game were among the 30 first-round selections at the 2010 NHL draft in Los Angeles. This year, expected lottery picks Sean Couturier and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins have been named captains of Team Cherry and Team Orr (which will be coached by Doug Gilmour, as Orr will beg off for the expected birth of a grandchild).
Of the Top 30 prospects from Central Scouting’s Midterm Rankings, 23 will play at the ACC, with the 24th, Landeskog, injured. The rest are non-CHL players playing in the U.S.
It’s the first step on the long march towards the 2011 draft in Minneapolis-St. Paul, a draft that is boiling down like this: Landeskog, Couturier, Nugent-Hopkins and Swedish defenceman Adam Larsson make up the top echelon, and after them comes everyone else.
“There isn’t a Taylor Hall kind of player there this year, but the four of them could potentially be starters in the NHL (next season),” Prendergast ventures. “Down the road, any one of these four guys could be a real stud for somebody.”
He especially likes Nugent-Hopkins, a six-foot centreman who plays his junior hockey with the Red Deer Rebels.
“He’s 167 pounds right now, but if this kid gets to 185 pounds?” Prendergast marveled. “They’re comparing him to Joe Sakic or Henrik Zetterberg. That’s exactly the kind of skill he has. It was really tough to cut him from the World Junior team, but he was 167 pounds, and it’s a 19-year-old’s tournament.”
For Nugent-Hopkins, the son of a Burnaby B.C. coffee salesman, it’s the beginning of a hectic time. His Rebels have a lengthy playoff run planned, and then Nugent-Hopkins will no doubt be invited to the Stanley Cup with the other lottery picks, and after that, the draft.
“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity that I’m going through right now, and I’m just trying to enjoy as much as I can. Just enjoy the process, and not let the pressure and expectations affect my game,” he said from Regina this week. “I don’t go on the internet very much, to tell you the truth. If I do it’s to go on Facebook, check my hotmail once in while. Or the WHL site, to see who’s winning.
“I don’t look at any blogs or any articles. It wouldn’t affect me, but I don’t want to give it a chance to.”
Starting with Tuesday’s game, Nugent-Hopkins may want to look at getting his internet service cut off completely. The distractions are bound to grow.
The Home Hardware CHL-NHL Top Prospects Game can be seen Wednesday only on Sportsnet starting at 7 p.m. ET | Check the TV schedule
