Devils Prospect Snap Shot

~

Because of their steady play, New Jersey hasn’t drafted higher than 17th since 1996. In that time only 9 players drafted by the Devils have played atleast 300 NHL games, which tells you either the unholy are to patient or aren’t the talent evaluating gurus some make them out to be. Zach Parise was gift wrapped to them by the Oilers, but they did select Scott Gomez, Travis Zajac, Paul Martin and Brian Gionta in the last 14 years. But the only stat that means anything is 3 Stanley Cup Championships since 1995. This year Jersey shipped out some young talent to bring in Ilya Kovalchuk, meaning the pecking order has changed.

Here now are some of the top prospects for the New Jersey Devils.

Falcons Get Wise... Man.

~
OK, I admit it... that's pretty weak.

The Springfield Falcons have announced the signing of forward Chad Wiseman to an amateur tryout deal and have simultaneously parted ways with Adam Henrich.

Henrich leaves the team with two points in Springfield's first four games but obviously wasn't fitting in the way the Oilers had hoped. The former Tampa Bay 2nd round pick will surely find work with another minor league team.

On the other hand, Wiseman joins the Falcons and has a fairly extensive background at the AHL level. The left winger is listed at 6'1 and just under 210 lbs so there are no concerns about size. Wiseman was a former 8th round pick of the San Jose Sharks back in 2000 and has appeared in a total of 9 NHL games.

With stops in Hartford, Cleveland and Hershey, Wiseman has hit the 50-point plateau 4 times and is coming off a 23-game campaign with Lowell where he had 19 points. Wiseman also had a stop in Germany where he had 23 points in 28 games with Wolfsburg Grizzly Adams (no... not kidding).

More details and/or comments after my calls are returned.

Falcons Flying High In Opener

The Springfield Falcons are perfect. Now I bet you didn't expect to read that sentence after last year. But Rob Daum's club opened the season with what sounds like a convincing 5-2 victory over the Portland Pirates Saturday night. Chris Minard, Charles Linglet, Liam Reddox, Taylor Chorney and Adam Henrich scored for Springfield, which went 3-5 on the power play.

Minard opened the scoring on the power play taking a quick centering pass from Ryan Potulny and wiring it past Jhonas Enroth from the slot. After Portland tied it up, Liam Reddox flashed some skill, spinning away from a check, coming out from behind the net and roofing it short side.

The trio of Chris Minard, Charles Linglet and Adam Henrich combined for 5 points and all factored in on the 3rd Falcons goal. After a nice cycle in the left corner, Minard made a sweet back pass to Linglet in front who snapped it past Enroth.

The Pirates Marc-Andre Gragnani notched his second of the game to cut Springfield's lead to one, but the Falcons answered on the power play again. Ryan Potulny won a clean faceoff to Chris Armstrong who fed a pass across the blueline to a waiting Taylor Chorney. The former Fighting Sioux one timed the pass in for his first of the season to make it 4-2.

Adam Henrich rounded out the scoring, trailing a 2 on 1 with Reddox and Slava Trukhno, Henrich put away a Reddox pass to put Springfield up by 3. Things got a little rough after that when Kip Brennan steam rolled Joe DiPenta. It might have been a charge and DiPenta went kind of nuts. While Brennan was dealing with Jeff Cowan in a scrap DiPenta 2 hand slashed Brennan, and a mini line brawl broke out.

All in all it seemed like a great effort from Springfield. Some nice offence, a productive power play, team toughness and Devan Dubnyk stopped 31 of the 33 shots he faced, including 13 in each of the final 2 periods. Overall Springfield was outshot 33-24.