The news of the week
Not too much in the way of news this week, but we do have one little tidbit to present. It looks like instead of turning pro for next season, Bryce Brodzinski is going to take his fifth year option and head back to Minnesota for one more season. This won’t affect anything as far as his NHL rights go – remember, every played in the NCAA during that COVID shortened/cancelled season was given an extra year of eligibility, and the team that drafted any of those players will hold their rights for an extra year as a result. So we’ll have to wait a bit longer to see if he sticks around in the organization or opts to hit free agency.
Sticking on the college prospect thread, there was one that the Flyers did lose, and that’s Gavin Hain. The Flyers had until June 1 to sign him, and that did not happen. So that’s one departure from the pipeline.
The prospect world tour
We have a few runs of play to recap here, and we’ll kick things off with the rest of USA hockey’s trip abroad to the World Championship (during which they found some success in the round robin stage, but couldn’t close things out to come home with any hardware). Cutter Gauthier was able to continue his stellar play, picking up five goals and two assists while chipping in a whopping 40 shots on goal in his last seven games. On the flip side, though, things did slow down a bit for Ronnie Attard. After putting up a goal early in the tournament, he only saw one more game, wherein he was held pointless but put up two shots on goal.
Up North, the Peterborough Petes’ Memorial Cup run fell just sort, also ending in disappointment for a pair of prospects (are we detecting a theme here?). In their final six games played, Brian Zanetti was able to step up and contribute a bit of offense, with a goal and an assist in this time. JR Avon was the real scene stealer during this time, though, as he really showed up to do just about everything he could to help prolong this run as much as possible. In those six games, he put up four goals and two assists. It wasn’t enough to fully put the team on his back and drag them to the final game, but it was still a very solid effort, and worth the attention garnered after flying under the radar a bit throughout the regular season.
That’s all, folks! That’s the end of prospect happenings until the draft and development camp, and that means it’s the end of prospect reports until the fall rolls around again. Thanks for sticking with us through another season, with a new format and a new host site, it’s been… an adventure. Until next time!
