Posted in Prospects
Estimated read time 5 min read

Playoff Edition Day Two

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by JessRubenstein
Perreault heads to the ice
Gabe Perreault (Boston College)

There were four New York Rangers prospects in action on Friday with some mixed results. Boston College survived an upset bid from the lowest seeded team in the NCAA tournament while the two CHL teams split their games.

NCAA Tournament Day two

The number one overall Boston College was facing the Bentley Falcons, a school from the Atlantic Hockey America conference and Boston College is so incredibly lucky that they came away with a 3-1 win to advance to the regional finals.

Gabe Perreault got Boston College going when he scored his 16th goal of the season at 16:45 of the first period. The even strength goal came when Perreault took a pass from Ryan Leonard and attacked the net, a simple fake and Perreault had an open net to shoot at and he scored for a 1-0 Boston College lead.

Drew Fortescue headshot
Drew Fortescue (Boston College)

But Bentley was not rolling over as in the second period they tied the score at 1-1 and the game stayed tied until the final 77 second of regulation. Drew Fortescue picked up a loose puck at the point and fed it to Aram Minnetian who fired a shot that went wide but James Hagen found the rebound and put in the rebound to give Boston College a 2-1 lead at 18:43 of the third period.

Boston College would add an empty net goal for the 3-1 final score as Boston College escaped what would have been an embarrassing defeat. Gabe Perreault was 1-0-1 on a game high seven shots was also a +3 as he improved to 16-32-48 on the season.

Drew Fortescue with his 0-1-1 was credited with two shots and a +1 as he improved to 0-11-11. Boston College advances to the regional final on Sunday where they will face Denver University in a rematch of last year’s championship game (won by Denver).

To be honest, the way Boston College has played the last month, Denver deserves to be favored in this one as Boston College struggles against physical teams like Denver. Not to mention that Denver is 5-1 in their last six games against Boston College.

You can watch this game Sunday night starting at 7 PM EDT live on ESPN2.

The CHL Playoffs

Aspinall Headshot
Nathan Aspinall (Flint Firebirds)

Nathan Aspinall and his sixth-seeded Flint Firebirds were looking to steal game one of their OHL Western Conference playoff series against third seeded the Kitchener Rangers (no relation). Give the Firebirds credit as they fought hard and forced the game to overtime before eventually dropping game 1 4-3.

Aspinall was a big part of the reason why as he went 1-1-2 setting up one tying goal and scoring another. With his team trailing 2-1 in the second period, Aspinall got the only assist on Matthew Mania’s goal that was so nice we got to show it to you.

 

That was the easiest assist Aspinall has had all season. But in the third period after Kitchener had retaken the lead at 3-2, it was Aspinall’s turn to score. Before you watch the clip, Aspinall is a 6’7 forward who scores this goal off the rush with a beauty of a shot.

It is Aspinall’s second career playoff goal and the game would wind up in overtime. On the night, Aspinall was credited with three shots and a +1. For those of you keeping score Aspinall regular season and playoffs combined is 18-31-49 which is tops among the Ranger prospects.

Game two of this series will be on Sunday.

Boilard Headshot
Raoul Boilard (Baie-Comeau Drakkar)

Raoul Boilard and his fourth-seeded Baie-Comeau Drakkar opened their QMJHL Eastern Conference playoff series with the fifth-seeded Cape Breton Eagles with a 3-1 win to take a 1-0 lead in the series. Boilard was scoreless on just one shot while going 9-9 on his faceoffs.

Game two will be Saturday night as the Drakkar look to protect their home ice advantage and send the series back to Cape Breton up 2-0.

Saturday

Ty Henricks and his Western Michigan Broncos will look to add to their record setting season as they face off against UMass in the Fargo Regional Finals. Western Michigan will be looking to earn a trip to the Frozen Four for the first time in school history.

The game will be televised on ESPNU starting at 6:30 EDT

JessRubenstein

Covering New York Ranger prospects since 2004, I have covered every Ranger prospect drafted over that time. I was lucky enough to have been trained by former Boston Bruins GM Harry Sinden having completed the NHL GM and Scouting Course taught at Sports Management Worldwide as well as the late EJ McGuire who was the director of the NHL's Central Scouting Bureau and was the former coach of the AHL's Hartford Wolfpack