Defense/Goaltending Prospect Statistics as of Mar. 07, 2010

Compiled by Brian Weidler, "Game Time" Prospect Department

St. Louis Game Time PROSPECT SUNDAYS

2007 first-round picks took the spotlight in the Blues' system this week. Up front, 13th-overall pick Lars Eller had a five-point week in Peoria, and on the blueline, 18th-overall selection Ian Cole saw a disappointing 2009-10 season -- and perhaps his NCAA career -- come to an end on Saturday night.

Cole and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish dropped the first two games of a best-of-three CCHA playoff series against Ohio State over the weekend, losing 3-1 on Mar. 5 and being blown out 8-2 on Saturday, both games at the OSU Ice Rink in Columbus. Cole finished the season with a pair of assists in the two playoff games, and put up a 3-16-19 scoring line in 30 games for the season, but injuries cost Cole a quarter of his junior season and poor team play by the Irish contributed to a wretched minus-16 mark for the big defenseman this year.

Speculation has flared again that Cole will opt to forego his senior year at Notre Dame and sign with the Blues this week, with an assignment to Peoria to follow immediately thereafter. The Rivermen are still short on the blueline, and only Jonas Junland, T.J. Fast, and newly-acquired Daryl Boyle are below the "prospect age" cutoff of 25 years.

Junland, for his part, rebounded from an ankle injury suffered in Rockford on Feb. 27 that caused him to miss the 4-0 whitewashing at the hands of the Milwaukee Admirals on the 28th. Junland shook of the injury and played two solid games for Peoria this week, picking up a power-play goal, two assists, four minutes in penalty time, and a solid plus-2 mark in a pair of wins for the Rivermen.

In the junior ranks, Mark Cundari of the powerhouse Windsor Spitfires had a rare week in which he didn't record a single point in two games, but was a plus-7 for the week in victories over Sudbury (6-0 on Feb. 28) and Saginaw (7-1 on Mar. 4). Cundari is already signed to an entry-level contract by the Blues, and could also find himself in Peoria yet this season if the Spits are upset early in the OHL playoffs. The 5-10, 200-pound bulldog on skates should be a regular for Peoria in 2010-11.

In the nets, after the departure of Hannu Toivonen from Peoria, Ben Bishop has played all three games for the Rivermen this past week, winning two of them and posting a 2.67 GAA and 90.9% save percentage in the last seven days.

Newly-acquired Joe Fallon, the all-time goaltending leader at the University of Vermont with 136 games played, a 63-51-17 record, and a 2.05 career GAA and 91.6% career save percentage for the Catamounts, has yet to see action for Peoria since the trade deadline deal that brought him over from the Blackhawks' organization.

Jake Allen continues to dominate in the Quebec League, with two wins, a 1.50 GAA and 95.6% save percentage for the week. More details to follow on Allen's stunning rise to the elite level of QMJHL goaltenders with les Voltigeurs de Drummondville later today.

In college, Paul Karpowich and the Clarkson Golden Knights split a pair of games with St. Lawrence over the weekend in the first round of the ECAC playoffs. After a 44-save effort on Friday night in a 3-2 OT loss to the Saints, Karpowich rebounded by turning aside 28 of 31 shots on Saturday to lead the Golden Knights to a 4-3 victory. The rubber game of the first-round series will be played tonight at 7:00 Eastern at the Appleton Arena on the campus of SLU in Canton, NY.

Your Game Time weekly prospect statistics update after the jump...