Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Sabres prospects drop championship game to Detroit at Traverse City

After scoring 16 goals through the first three games of the Traverse City Tournament, the hard-charging Buffalo Sabres prospects were throttled by the Detroit Red Wings prospects as Buffalo lost 4-2 to Detroit.

The Sabres squad got no production from their top-two lines as only Fredrick Roy--a Rochester Amerks bottom-six pest--and Peter Trainor, who was added to the prospects team after Mark Pysyk was withdrawn from the team, scored.

For the first time all tournament Buffalo found themselves playing catch-up as Detroit took a 2-0 lead on powerplay goals by Anthony Mantha (#20-overall, 2013.) He scored at 18:29 of the first period with Zemgus Girgensons in the box for interference.

Thirty seconds later, Buffalo's Nikita Zadorov took a high sticking penalty and a mere :29 into the second period Mantha potted another powerplay goal.

Roy cut the lead only to have Detroit's Zach Nastasiuk (#48, 2013) put the Wings up by two goals once again.

With six minutes left in the game, Trainor pulled the Sabres to within one. Red Wings forward Tomas Jurco (#35, 2011) iced the game with :26 left on an empty net goal.

Players don't have a lot of time to reflect as Sabres training camp starts tomorrow.

Many will be headed there while others will be headed to their respective junior team.

Much will be said about the perfomances of Nick Baptiste, Rasmus Ristolainen, and Zadorov. All three 2013 draft picks had strong performances. Baptiste for his relentless play and work-ethic, not to mention his team-leading seven points (4g, 3a); Ristolainen for his rock-solid steadiness on the back-end; Zadorov for his goliath-like presence, hard hits and a glimpse into his offensive up-side.

Girgensons and Johan Larsson showed that they'll have a good shot at making the big club out of camp. Chad Ruhwedel was excellent until his upper body injury and will make a strong push for a spot on the Buffalo blueline. And Trainor earned himself a long look for the Amerks.

But, conspicuously absent from the score sheet as well as any mention at all in re-caps is the Sabres Joel Armia.

The 2011 16th overall pick disappeared.

The book on him is that he'll pull a Houdini for long stretches only to make pot an important goal.

None of that this tournament, even playing on the top line with Grigensons and Larsson the last two game.

The excuses will come out--he's adjusting to a smaller rink, penalties kept him on the bench, he couldn't get warmed up, etc--but the fact is, he was invisible.

That's not a good sign. Anyone who thought he could make the Sabres out of camp got a sharp dose of reality.

Armia still has camp and preseason to make a strong impression, but a ticket to Rochester may be his best hope.

If not, it's a shame the team wasted a first rounder on an highly-skilled, inconsistent forward who can't handle the rigors of a smaller rink and tough competition. All traits, by the way, that we've found with Darcy Regier's "core" over the last six seasons.

There are only two "core-like" players left, Armia and Mikhail Grigorenko.

Let's hope at least one of them can have the impact they were drafted for.

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