Prospect Weekly: Early Returns

Nicolas Meloche has settled into playing regularly in San Antonio after his five game stint with the Colorado Eagles. Injuries to Chris Bigras and Tyson Barrie opened up the roster space for him and he’s been seeing roughly middle pair minutes mostly with Duncan Siemens. Meloche gets into a good number of offensive situations as seen here with this power play goal on the second power play unit in a 5-4 win over the Texas Stars. Hopefully the organization will find a way to keep him in the AHL from this point forward.

Dominic Toninato added to his goal and assist in the aforementioned 5-4 win the following night with the game winning OT marker to defeat the Texas Stars again 1-0 this time in San Antonio. He has been playing very well in an expanded role and should be ready whenever the Avalanche need him.

The Regina Pats still in search of some traction ahead of hosting the Memorial Cup were able to come from behind and win 5-4 against the surging Brandon Wheat Kings. Nick Henry scored the go ahead tally with that blistering shot of his.

The Ottawa 67s are still having a tough time after the holiday break, dropping all three games last week but Travis Barron got some momentum with this nice play for a shorthanded goal in a 4-2 loss to the Oshawa Generals.

Over in Buffalo for the World Junior Championship, Cale Makar has been dazzling despite some inconsistent playing time. His two goals and two assists leads Canada in scoring from defensemen and tied third in the tournament in points from defensemen. Below is Makar’s goal from Canada’s 8-0 victory over Denmark.

Conor Timmins has been playing the more shutdown role but also has contributed on the scoresheet with two points, both assists. This nifty pass for a score also from that 8-0 victory over Denmark.

For Your Viewing Pleasure:

Canada’s Quarterfinal match against Switzerland kicks off at 4pm ET on Tuesday, January 2nd on TSN and NHL Net.

A home and home for Notre Dame (Morrison) against Michigan this weekend. The Friday, January 5th match at 6:30pm ET on the Big 10 Network and the rematch Sunday at 3pm ET on NBCSN.

Penn State (Smirnov) picks up a game on the Big 10 Network themselves on Saturday, January 6th at 7pm ET against Wisconsin.