Wild prospects find some success at Traverse City tournament

I know when I first took a look at the Wild's roster for this year's Traverse City, Michigan prospect tournament, I groaned. To me, I felt like it was proof of failed scouting and development of the Wild's prospects. Then to add insult to injury, with a majority of the players on the roster listed as 'tryout' players it felt like a slap to the face. Many fans have felt punished by the organization, by failing to keep players within the system, trading them for fringe players that never fixed the problems the Wild had.However, before the puck could even drop the Wild were faced with an injury that kept one player out of the tournament. While getting ready for the upcoming season in Houston with the Aeros of the American Hockey League, forward Cody Almond sprained his MCL in his knee. Not only has this injury kept him out of the prospect tournament, it will keep Almond out of the all important training camp as well. For a young player, it's important to make a positive name for yourself at your parent team's training camp. Now, he will have to work even harder when his knee heals in order to just make a name for himself in Houston. One can only hope that the fact he played late into both the Memorial Cup (Canadian juniors) Finals and the Calder Cup (AHL) playoffs he is still in decent enough shape as opposed to his respective seasons being finished in March.Joining the Wild prospects in Traverse City are prospect squads of Columbus Blue Jackets, St. Louis Blues, and the Dallas Stars for Western Conference teams. The Eastern teams are the Atlanta Thrashers, Carolina Hurricanes, Detroit Red Wings (yes, they're still in the NHL's Western Conference), and New York Rangers. The coaches for the Wild's prospects are Aeros head coach Kevin Constantine, Mike LeRose, and Troy Ward. With Constantine at the helm, one should expect a defensively responsible game. While Wild head coach Todd Richards is promising a more up-tempo game this season in Saint Paul, it is still highly important the young players learn to play both ends of the ice. Whild it is important, one can only wonder how long two such different philosophies of the game will continue within the Wild organization.Perhaps imitating the season opener, the Wild's prospects faced off against the prospects of the Columbus Blue Jackets on Sunday. And also possibly imitating past games against the Blue Jackets, the Wild found themselves down the first goal on a timely mid-first period goal by Stefan Legein. It would take more than half the game for the Wild to find their scoring touch. With the high number of tryout players on the Wild's roster, one shouldn't be surprised that their first goal would come from one of those tryout players. 6-foot, 185 pound Calgary, Alberta native, Kevin King found the back of the Blue Jackets net at 6:45 of the third period. Fellow tryout player and Delaware, Ontario native, Brandon Buck scored the winning goal just four minutes later. Backstopping the Wild was their third round 2009 Entry Draft pick, Matt Hackett. The 6-foot 2-inch, 170 pound goaltender, stopped twenty of twenty-one shots he faced. The Wild prospects continued on their road toward success on Monday's matchup against the prospects of the Dallas Stars. Just like their opening game of the tournament, this game also mimicked some of the NHL games between the Wild and Stars. It took most of the first period for the Wild to tally their first goal, the honors going to tryout player Tyler Johnson. To top matters off, it took five rounds of a shootout to determine the game. While he stopped all but one shot in regulation, goaltender Darcy Kuemper came up big during the shootout. The Wild's sixth round pick in this past June's Entry Draft, Kuemper stopped all five attempts by the Stars' shooters in the shootout. Scoring the winning goal for the Wild in the shootout, was Calgary, Alberta native, Kristopher Foucault. It was a positive sign that a Wild draft pick found a way to put the game away.Unfortunately, the Wild youngsters were unable to keep the winning streak going. During Wednesday's game against the prospects of the St. Louis Blues, they had to fight tooth and nail in order to force the game to overtime. Not only did they force overtime, but they had to find a way to dig themselves out of a 3-0 hole. The first two goals by Brandon Buck and Darcy Foucault gave the Wild a fighting chance. However it was the goal scored with just three seconds remaining in regulation by yet another tryout player, Zack Torquato that gave them the chance to possibly win. Not only did they push the game to overtime, but they pushed it untimately to a shootout. In the shootout, the Wild went scoreless whereas the Blues' skaters Philip McRae and Aaron Palushaj who took the game for their team. Although the Wild found themselves with a 2-0-1 record at the end of play in their Western Conference play, they faced off against the winner of the Eastern Conference, the Carolina Hurricanes. The Carolina Squad went 2-1 in their conference play. Carolina scored first, but was answered by Minnesota just over a minute later by Chad Rau. Rau, an Eden Prairie, Minnesota native was originally selected by Toronto in the seventh round in the 2005 Entry Draft. This goal would end up being the only goal by the Wild prospects, was set up Zack Torquato. Scoring the Hurricanes' four goals were Zach Boychuk, Brandon Sutter, Chris Terry, and Stefan Chaput. While the Wild showed some success in Traverse City, it has once again pointed out the obvious. One, the Wild are extremely short in prospect numbers. Former General Manager, Doug Risebrough, often traded away draft picks or propects, and usually for little in return. Thankfully new General Manager, Chuck Fletcher, has realized this early on in his tenure. The invited tryout players seemed to payoff for the most part. However, one can only be a bit nervous to notice that only one player drafted by the Wild managed to find the back of the net. Players like Morten Madsen and Carson McMillan needed to make a strung showing this past week. However, it was a new draft pick like Foucault and tryouts like Buck, King, and Torquato that were responsible for the scoring.The other issue that has been demonstrated in this tournament, has been an issue that has long plagued the Wild organization. If you haven't guessed what that problem is, you clearly haven't followed this team for any length of time. The glaring problem is once again lack of scoring. The Wild never scored more than two goals in a game, and in both games that they lost, they only managed a single goal. The scoring this past week very much resembled the exact same problem in Minnesota. In fact any team out there will struggle to win most of their games if they can only score one goal in a game. The Wild appear to be using much of the same method for their upcoming training camp that they did for their prospects. The Wild have invited four players to Saint Paul: Andy Hilbert, Brian Kaufman, Peter Zingoni, and J.P. Testwuide. While Hilbert probably has the best chance of earning a spot, it will be a longshot for any of them. Plus, none of them will solve the problems of lack of prospects and lack of scoring. I feel like part of me is lumping this year's roster in with the rosters the Wild had during their first two seasons. While our ultimate roster will be no where as depressing as that accumulation of NHL fringe guys, castoffs, and last chance players, I still feel like we're scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel. I know it will sound cliche, but with all the new faces, perhaps the Wild can start to resemble the mythical phoenix, rising from the ashes of its funeral pyre. With training camp starting on Sunday, time will only tell what happens now.