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Future Watch 2012
The Hockey News has been providing the most comprehensive coverage of the world of hockey since 1947. In each issue, you'll find news, features and opinions about the NHL and leagues across North America and the world.
TRAINING WHEELS OFF
B RANKED 16th What do the Sabres like most about their top prospects? “Some of our guys played this year,” said Jon Christiano, Buffalo’s director of pro scouting. The Sabres have long believed a young player must pay his dues before getting a taste of the NHL. GM Darcy Regier’s basic guideline was 120 games in the American League, making the prospects ride buses and learn to be a pro while increasing their itch for The Show. That’s changed. Tyler Myers jumped from junior to the Calder Trophy in 2010. This season, first-year pros Zack Kassian, Brayden McNabb and Marcus Foligno have made appearances in Buffalo. 1 ZACK KASSIAN RW, 21, Rochester (AHL) 6-3, 228, 30-15-11-26-31 Kassian’s objective in his first pro season: show there’s more to his game than hitting and fighting. In fact, those…
UNITED CENTERS
B RANKED 12th The Blackhawks have been looking for a No. 2 center since Bernie Nicholls gave them a strong one-two punch with Jeremy Roenick in the mid-1990s. While that search continues for GM Stan Bowman, there is hope for the future. Bowman thinks he has four strong candidates to vie for that second-line role between Jonathan Toews and Dave Bolland. They are prospects Brandon Pirri, Phillip Danault, Mark McNeill and Kevin Hayes. Only a few years ago, center was a weak area on the organization’s depth chart, but that was before the Hawks took Pirri in the second round in 2009 and used first round picks on Hayes, McNeill and Danault. 1 BRANDON SAAD LW 19, Saginaw (OHL) 6-2, 206, 30-21-33-54-20 When Chicago opened the season in Dallas, Saad was playing left wing on Jonathan…
STAMP OF APPROVAL
Mikael Granlund remains focused on the here and now, and a little on the NHL. Each morning when he wakes up in Helsinki, Granlund turns on the TV and checks the NHL scores – all scores, not just the ones for the Minnesota Wild, the club that drafted him ninth overall in 2010. Before the 2012 World Junior Championship in Calgary and Edmonton in December, Granlund hadn’t seen the Wild play at all this season, but he did manage to catch a game on TV during the tournament. The Wild, in turn, must have had their eyes on Granlund all year long, as the 20-year-old keeps on building his resume in the Finnish SM-liiga where he’s currently a reigning champion, Helsinki IFK’s first line center and second in league scoring with…
SURPRISING SECONDS
New Jersey Devils GM Lou Lamoriello likes to tell a story about how he stumbled upon one of the greatest checking centers in franchise history. The way Lamoriello tells it, each time he went to the University of Michigan to check on the progress of Devils prospect Brendan Morrison, another player kept capturing his attention. “The more we saw Brendan Morrison,” Lamoriello once said, “the more we liked John Madden.” The same phenomenon might be happening at Western Michigan University this season. All year, GMs and scouts have been beating a path to Kalamazoo to watch sophomore defenseman Danny DeKeyser, the crown jewel of the college free agents available. But as they’ve been doing that, they’ve also noticed the work of his teammate, junior defenseman Matt Tennyson, another free agent who…
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