Rangers' Prospects Fall to Hurricanes in Traverse City, 5-3

For the first game in this week's prospect tournament, the Rangers were set to go head to head with the squad of youngsters that the Carolina Hurricanes sent to Traverse City, Michigan. The game started off fairly quietly until the Rangers' Luke Walker took a too many men on the ice penalty ten minutes into the game, but the Hurricanes failed to capitalize with the man advantage. Shortly after, one of the Hurricanes top prospects, Drayson Bowman put Carolina on top with a goal with just under two minutes remaining in the first period. So the boys from New York found themselves down, 1-0, going into the first intermission.

To open up the second, Ryan Bourque committed a high sticking penalty ninety seconds into the period, but once again, the Rangers were able to kill it off. Then forward Daniel Bartek put the Rangers on the board for the first time in the game with a goal at 3:46 of the second period. Mike Del Zotto and Justin Soryal went on to take a penalty each in the period, putting the 'Canes on the powerplay, but for the third and fourth time in the game, the Blueshirts killed it off. With just under five minutes remaining in the second, the Hurricanes' Matt Kennedy gave Carolina a 2-1 lead, which they would take into the locker-room with them for the second intermission.

To begin the third, Jamie McBain of the Hurricanes took a penalty for hooking on Rangers Prospect, Evgeny Grachev, who was on a breakaway that goaltender Murphy denied. Despite taking the penalty, Zack Boychuk managed to score a goal four minutes into the third which gave the Hurricanes a comfortable 3-1 lead. Evidently the lead was not too comfortable, as the Rangers came storming back with back to back goals from Ryan Bourque and Roman Horak, both of which are highly regarded prospects within the Rangers organization. The two goals came within 21 seconds of each other, which saw the Blueshirts in a tie game close to mid-way through the third.

After that, things seemed to calm themselves down, when Mike Del Zotto took his second penalty of the game 11:12 into the third, this time for high sticking. For the fifth and final time the Rangers killed off a Hurricane powerplay, but let up a goal to Elgin Reid of Carolina at even strength with just over two minutes remaining in the game. The Blueshirts pulled goaltender, Scott Stajcer to gain the extra attacker but to no avail, as the Hurricanes buried an empty netter with 34 seconds left to put the icing on the cake.

So the Rangers begin the tourney with an 0-1 record, and will hit the ice again tomorrow against the Atlanta Thrashers. There are some positives to take out of this game, even though the Blueshirts could not find a way to win. First off, the penalty-killing unit was outstanding, killing off a perfect 5 out of 5. Also, two of the Rangers' top prospects in Ryan Bourque and Roman Horak found their way onto the score-sheet, as did second round pick, Ethan Werek. I have also heard that goaltender Scott Stajcer, for the most part, played a great game saving 35 out of 39 shots.

Now for the negatives. The bottom line is that the Rangers cannot expect to win games in this tournament if they are going to take five minor penalties per game. That is just simply unacceptable. Especially for defenseman Mike Del Zotto, who recorded two of the five himself. Surprisingly, the Rangers only trailed in shots by five (40-35), but the penalties still did damage to any tempo that they were trying to set.

As mentioned above, the Rangers' Prospects with look for their first tournament win tomorrow, when they math-up against Evander Kane and the Atlanta Thrashers at 3 pm Eastern Time. We will have the same coverage here as we did today, including period by period scoring updates. And as always, make sure to check my Twitter, as I post the scoring updates there before they actually hit the site. Until we meet up again tomorrow, have a good weekend!

Full game box score HERE. Period Updates can be found below.