St. Louis Game Time PROSPECT SUNDAY TUESDAY
By Brian Weidler, "Game Time" Prospect Department
Baby Blues win big in Traverse City; Tarasenko, Lehtera open KHL season with win.
Tyler Shattock's even-strength goal at 14:29 of the first period broke a 1-all tie and stood up as the game winner, while Jake "The Snake" Allen (pictured at left) turned aside 27 of 28 Dallas shots to lead the St. Louis Blues prospects to a resounding 6-1 win over the Dallas Stars prospects in the 2011 Traverse City (MI) Prospect Tournament.
The Blues' prospects have taken second place in the Gretzky Division (2-1-0, 6 pts), one point behind the New York Rangers (2-0-1, 7 pts), and will face off tomorrow against either Buffalo, Columbus, or Minnesota in the tournament's Bronze medal game. Today's late games in the Howe Division (MIN-CBJ, BUF-DET) will decide the Blues' opponent for the 6:30 PM (Eastern) matchup tomorrow
The top line of Philip McRae centering Ty Rattie and Jay Barriball accounted for an even-strength goal early in the second period, and comprised the lead power-play unit along with defensemen Mark Cundari and Cade Fairchild. That unit was responsible for three goals with the man advantage in the second and third periods to power the baby Blues to the victory.
McRae and Rattie, both with a 2-3-5 scoring line, are in a five-way tie for the tournament scoring lead, in advance of today's late games. Barriball and 2008 draftee Anthony Nigro have each also chipped in two goals to pace the team's goal-scoring parade.
LINK to official game sheet from today's game.
| #48 – Jay BARRIBALL | #38 – Philip McRAE | #61 – Ty RATTIE |
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| Player | P/S | Ht | Wt | Birthdate | 2010-11 Club/League | GP | G | A | Pts | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW |
| BARRIBALL, Jay | C/L | 5-09 | 171 | 05-27-87 | Minnesota (WCHA) | 30 | 12 | 16 | 28 | + 6 | 18 | 7 | 0 | 3 |
| Peoria (AHL) | 6 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||||
| McRAE, Philip | C/L | 6-03 | 191 | 03-15-90 | Peoria (AHL) | 46 | 12 | 14 | 26 | - 3 | 23 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| St. Louis (NHL) | 15 | 1 | 2 | 3 | -10 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||||
| RATTIE, Ty | RW/R | 6-00 | 170 | 02-05-93 | Portland (WHL) | 67 | 28 | 51 | 79 | +20 | 55 | 6 | 0 | 4 |
On the other side of the world, 2010 first-round pick Vladimir Tarasenko scored the first goal of the 2011-12 season for his hometown club Sibir Novosibirsk, and later assisted on a Jonas Enlund power-play tally along with 2009 draftee Jori Lehtera as Sibir topped Amur Khabarovsk by a 5-2 count on opening day of the KHL season.
Former NHL'er Jan Lasak took the loss for Amur, and Blues' draftee (83rd overall in 2004) Viktor Alexandrov also skated for Amur.
LINK to official game summary (in English) at the KHL website.