Traverse City Recap: Red Wings drop championship game to the Columbus Blue Jackets

The undefeated Blue Jackets have won the Traverse City Prospects Tournament and with it, the Matthew Wuest Memorial Cup. They beat the Red Wings 7-3, Kevin Stenlund leading the way for the Jackets with 2 goals and 1 assist. Playing 4 games in 5 days is tough to ask of any hockey player and by the end of the tournament, the Jackets just had more energy and were able to translate that into better play. Congratulations to the Jackets team featuring former Red Wings prospect defenseman Jordan Sambrook on their achievement. Next in store for the Red Wings is Training Camp in Traverse City.

The first period started out with a fast pace to it, but that didn’t lead to any goals in the first half of the period. Kevin Stenlund got the scoring started for the Jackets on a delayed penalty call against the Red Wings. The assist went to Trey-Fix Wolansky.

Shortly after the Stenlund goal, Givani Smith tied the game right up for the Wings on the power play, with Vili Saarijarvi getting the lone assist.

The second period was all Jackets, with the Red Wings team looking visibly tired compared to the Jackets. Kevin Stenlund scored his second goal of the game on the power play to put the Jackets up 2-1. Eric Robinson with the assist.

The third period of play featured a lot of action, with the Red Wings getting two goals in the first 1:35 of the game.

First up was Givani Smith’s second goal of the game, with the assist going to Alec Regula. This tied the game at 2.

The Red Wings then scored again 29 seconds later on the power play thanks to Dennis Cholowski, with Michael Rasmussen and Joe Veleno getting the assists to put the Wings up 3-2.

The Jackets would then go on to score 5 unanswered goals to secure their 7-3 win. First in line is Eric Robinson’s goal. Kevin Stenlund and Michael Prapavessis got the assists to tie the game at 3.

Sam Vigneault scored 38 seconds later to put the Jackets up 4-3. Maxime Fortier, a former teammate of Filip Zadina’s in Halifax, with the lone assist.

Trey Fix-Wolansky stole the puck in the Red Wings zone and proceeded to score making the game 5-3 Jackets at that point.

Garret Cockerill scored the shorthanded empty-netter from his own zone right as Red Wings goalie prospect Kaden Fulcher made it to the bench.

In the final seconds of the game, Jackets prospect Kole Sherwood scored a breakaway goal while on the penalty kill.

The Red Wings, for now, have seemed to avoid a serious injury to their top prospect 2018 1st rounder Filip Zadina, who was involved in a nasty collision in the middle of the 3rd period. He would come back to play a few more shifts down the stretch.

The Red Wings have released a series of post-game videos from prospects Givani Smith, Filip Zadina, Michael Rasmussen, and Joe Veleno.

Along with Filip Zadina’s comments, The Athletic’s Aaron Portzline reported an update on Zadina.

Next up on the agenda is training camp, which will be held at Centre Ice Arena in Traverse City from September 14th-18th. Training Camp will feature both an alumni game on September 15th at 7 pm and the Red and White game on September 16th at 12 pm. Visit https://www.centreice.org/page/show/482510-drw-training-camp for ticket information and stay tuned for the training camp roster.