American winger Shane Prince, who is tearing it up for the Ottawa 67's this year with Tyler Toffoli and Ryan Martindale, is reportedly going to the CHL Top Prospects game as an injury replacement.
A real shame that Gabriel Landeskog won't be there, but he's still a few weeks away from returning from his high ankle sprain, and the interesting thing will be to see how affected his game is by the injury. Bruins fans saw how much it hindered Milan Lucic a year ago, but Landeskog is a better skater than Big Looch.
Prince has very good speed, quick hands and a real scorer's intuition.
A case could certainly be made for Windsor's Russian import Alexander Khokhlachev, too. But in the end, Prince's production obviously won out.
I'm less bullish on the calls for Mike St. Croix as others, but haven't seen him other than video clips, so would have been nice to get a closer look at him. But, my NHL sources out West have not been all that charitable on St. Croix. I need to do a follow-up and see if anything's changed, because there is no denying the Edmonton Oil Kings center's skill and scoring prowess.
Here's some video: you make the call. Prince, Khokhlachev or St. Croix?
Shane Prince
Alexander Khokhlachev
Mike St. Croix
Thanks to Jerome at NHLDraftVideo for making this easy for me.
*(Not affiliated with the Boston Bruins or the New England Hockey Journal)
Personally, I'm definitely glad Prince was named.
ReplyDeleteI know what The Khok brings to the ice. But I'm very curious to see Prince perform without Toffoli and Martindale, and amongst a higher level of competition. If he has a great game, he could begin to cement himself as a legitimate first round candidate.
That makes two of us, Brock. Especially since he's going to be my Feb. Prospects Pulse feature for the new New York Hockey Journal magazine...
ReplyDeleteI just got a DM from Scott Norton who says the official announcement wont come from the CHL until Wednesday. But he says, definitely on the squad for Landeskog
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