A Stars Fans' Perspective on Traverse City Prospect Tournament

A big thanks to DefendingBigD community member BrettB29 for providing us with his first-hand insights and observations from the 2010 Traverse City Prospect Tournament. What follows is his fanpost, in case you didn't see it [-BG]...

After a great weekend spent up in Traverse City I wanted to briefly share some of my observations. First: A disclaimer that I am no reporter and none of my information is much different than over at Andrew's DSP is in order.

Generally, this tournament is a great experience. I was actually surprised at how available players and management were to the common people attending. GM Joe actually sat right behind me for the wings game and it was an amazing opportunity to be able to chat briefly with him before the game and hear his comments during as well. ("Well, at least we got our drubbing out of the way." , a discussion about draft strategy, among others) Ray Ferarro, Chris Chelios, Mike Babcock, and many others whom I did not encounter were all around during the weekend as well. The only advice of caution I will pass on to anyone who wishes to attend in the future is that making a trip to see a practice could be disappointing in this tournament. The one I attended (Sunday morning) only 4 skaters and Tyler Beskorowany participated. Everyone else stayed off ice and worked on stretches.

First, the disastrous Wings game...

Jack Campbell looked like a world beater in warm-ups being competitive and challenging all shots only allowing maybe 2 for the entire time he was in net to pass him. That's not to say shooters try to score every shot as to point out Campbell's competitive focus.

The first goal for the wings was a PPG by Tomas Tatar where he essentially walked around Philip Larsen and took a perfect shot off the crossbar high blocker side. Second goal was a terribly weak play by Antoine Corbin who looked like he was skating in mud as the wings player skated to the dump in and tapped one low past Campbell that was pretty weak to allow. Third goal came off of a bad turnover by Etienne Boutet and Guillaume Monast on D that led to a rebound shot being put top blocker on Campbell again. Tomas Vincour scored for the stars on a nice wrap around to make it 3-1. Wings came back with a one timer top shelf again off the post but this time glove side after some weak D from Boutet and partner again. In fact, weak defensive play was a woe all afternoon by most lines. Larsen was also absolutely crushed with a hit along the boards near the blue line and appeared to be in considerable discomfort on the bench but kept playing the rest of the game. His small size does not bode well for him in that aspect. However, this is not to say that the D was hopeless. Despite my citing Boutet's errors leading to goals, he was generally good under vigorous forechecking from the Wings. Larsen also directly saved at least two almost inevitable goals with play in the slot.

The main takeaway from this game was the wings killed us with speed and a hard forecheck that completely dominated our defense.

I was also able to see the game against St. Louis. For some reason, the St. Louis prospects seemed to have zero inclination to win the game after Vincour scored just seconds in. The rest of the game was St. Louis perfecting hitting, making sure to include plenty of late ones. The old story about a hockey game breaking out at a fight was relevant here. It seemed as though the Stars spent nearly the entire game on the powerplay. Ian Beach in particular for the Blues could not step onto the ice without another penalty. The disappointing thing about the powerplay time was its ineffectiveness. Passes around the perimeter and a few wild shots or blocked shots were the norm. Ondrej Roman in particular could not finish a goal to save his life. So many times he would be in prime position and a pass would come his way for a tap in but the result was failure. Maybe a case of gripping the stick too tight. Glennie also was somewhat frustrating as he would have clear chances to take a quality shot on the rush and opt to pass instead often negating whatever offensive chance was there originally. Beskorowany played very well for the Stars in this game. He is definitely slower in movement than Campbell but has the positioning down and makes the saves that need to be made. If I had to pick one to play on my team this year, definitely it would be Thomas Beskorowany but Campbell will hopefully have a chance to bounce back.

One bright spot was the glimpses of Sergei Zubov's mind control/puck handling through the neutral zone possessed by Larsen. He can weave his way through in a similarly magical way. Unfortunately though, as should not be unexpected in a game as rough as this one, he took another HUGE hit but again kept on going. Just makes you realize that some more seasoning in the NHL for him to grow out a bit would be not only good for his skills but possibly also his health. One can only take so many hits before they start to add up (Robidas excluded perhaps).

Finally, a good barometer to whether the game against the wings was an anomaly or the normal for our team will be Tuesdays match against the Lightning. They dominated the wings for long stretches of play on Sunday night and appeared to be even faster than the Wings who made us look slow by comparison. Eventually in the third the wings battled back but after a scoreless overtime and a seemingly endless shootout fell to Tampa. If we can hang with Tampa, then we can write of the Wings game as first game issues.

**EDIT** Thought I would also include this short clip. Sadly most fights went this way for Stars prospects with the exception of one by Grbavac.

TC Prospect Tournament Fight (via deachemist08)