CHL teams showcase their top prospects
By Aaron Bell
The annual Home Hardware CHL-NHL Top Prospects Game is traditionally an opportunity for top rated prospects to show off their skills against their peers.
That will happen again this year but it’s also an opportunity for CHL teams to be recognized for developing top end talent for the NHL Entry Draft year after year.
This year, the Saint John Sea Dogs and Portland Winterhawks will take centre stage with four players from each organization taking part in the 2011 event on January 18-19 at Air Canada Centre in Toronto, ON (7:00 p.m. Eastern on Rogers Sportsnet and RDS).
Saint John forwards Jonathan Huberdeau (rated fourth in the NHL Central Scouting mid-term draft rankings released earlier this week), Zack Phillips (rated 12th) and Tomas Jurco (rated 24th) and defenceman Nathan Beaulieu (rated ninth) were all named to the 40 player roster.
Meanwhile after sending four players to the game last year in Windsor, the Winterhawks will be very well represented again this year by forwards Sven Bartschi (rated sixth) and Ty Rattie (rated 11th) and defencemen Joe Morrow (rated 16th) and Tyler Wotherspoon (rated 33rd).
The rosters were set after a vote of the 30 NHL General Managers and NHL Central Scouting.
The Sea Dogs had nine players listed when the mid-term rankings were released earlier this week.
“It’s pretty impressive,” Saint John head coach Gerard Gallant told The Telegraph-Journal. “Obviously our scouting staff did an outstanding job.
“The kids are playing well and when you’re winning as much as we have in the last year and a half, you get some attention. I’m real happy for the guys.”
The Sea Dogs have been on a roll all season putting together the best record in the CHL at 34-5-0-2 through the first 41 games of the season.
They lost in the QMJHL final to the Moncton Wildcats last spring and seem destined to get another shot at the President’s Trophy.
“It’s been a real good start to the season,” Gallant said. “There’s no doubt about that. We’ve got a lot of players back from last season. We’re playing well, we’ve got a lot of skill and we’ve been healthy. That’s a key.
“We hit a lot of franchise milestones last season and so far this season things have gone real well, but we all know it’s about winning the championship and going to the Memorial Cup. That’s what our goal has been since Day 1.”
Despite their team success this season, the four Sea Dogs won’t all get to play together in the Top Prospects Game. Jurco will suit up for Team Cherry while his three teammates will side together with the Doug Gilmour and Wendel Clark coached Team Orr.
For the Winterhawks, Rattie, Morrow and Wotherspoon will be on Team Cherry while Bartschi – the top rookie scorer in the WHL and Portland’s scoring leader this season with 21 goals and 47 points – will play for Team Orr.
NHL Central Scouting Director E.J. McGuire said that despite being teammates on their club teams, these guys will go at each other like any other opponent.
“This is not an All-Star game in the friendly sense of the word,” McGuire told NHL.com. “There’ll be no taping of shin pads and there will be growling at faceoffs. It’s a showcase in one sense, but sometimes the talent the NHL scouts are looking for is intensity and meanness. We’ve had tempers flare to the point where gloves come off and the hits are hard. They’re playing for keeps out there.”