It’s been a busy week in the world of prospects, with faces new and old coming and going, and more players stepping up as their stretch runs ramp up. Let’s take a few moments to check in with this week’s top contributors.

The News of the Week

It’s been a busy week around here, to say the least. The NHL trade deadline has come and gone, and it brought some pretty major changes to the Phantoms with it. Alexis Gendron and Massimo Rizzo were traded to the Bruins, with Brett Harrison and Jackson Edward coming back in return (neither have gotten in for a game with the Phantoms yet, but it’s a safe bet that we’ll see them at some point in this weekend’s three-in-three), while David Jiricek came into the organization as the return for Bobby Brink, and he was able to make his debut last weekend. Along with that, the Flyers signed Noah Powell out of ASU this week, and he’s expected to make his debut this weekend as well, meanwhile Cole Knuble’s college season came to an end this week as Notre Dame was eliminated from the Big 10 Tournament, and though there’s no signing news there yet, one imagines it’s coming before too long. And finally, last weekend also saw Alex Bump recalled from the Phantoms and finally making his NHL debut with the Flyers, so he’s out of the mix for the time being. 

Three Stars

Jacob Gaucher

This week was a strange one for the Phantoms, in that they’re still struggling to string together wins, but there’s certainly no lack of offense unfolding in the midst of that. They’ve gotten contributions from all over the lineup, but the flashiest numbers this week come from Jacob Gaucher. Over these last three games, Gaucher has chipped in four goals and an assist, as his offense has really been picking up to match the steady baseline of defensive responsibility that he’s also been delivering. Gaucher’s game itself might not always be flashy, but he’s playing a direct game, a focused game, and he’s getting rewarded for it. There’s plenty of space for high-octane and spark elsewhere in their collective game, but Gaucher’s attentive example has proved a good one to follow. 

Ilya Pautov

While it hasn’t been the most optimal of seasons so far for Pautov, as he’s struggled to find his footing and solidify a role for himself at the next level, he’s beginning to again make the best of his situation and get his game going again at the MHL level. There were two games on deck for him this week, and they saw him chip in a tidy two goals and two assists. His game is very much still a project, but if he’s able to finish out this season strong, he’ll be better position to reattack that graduation to the VHL next year. There’s still a good bit of runway ahead of him on the season, and it’s nice to see him really hitting his stride again. We’ll see where he’s able to go from here. 

Porter Martone

It was a reasonably solid last weekend of the regular season for MSU, as they split their series with Minnesota and clinched first place in their conference, and Martone once again stepped up as a key contributor in that. Martone was buzzing, creating some really good looks (for which he was rewarded with two goals and an assist), while also continuing to play the role of a bit of an agitator, which is always fun (Shane Vansaghi also picked up an assist on the series, we should note for completion’s sake).

That top seed clinching earned the Spartans a first-round bye in the conference tournament, but we’ll see them back in action tomorrow night, facing off against Ohio State in the semifinal, as they continue their march towards the main tournament. 

Honorable Mentions

Back to the Phantoms, as we alluded to already, Gaucher certainly wasn’t the only player in that lineup who got involved in the scoring over these last three games. The Phantoms managed quite an impressive comeback in Saturday’s game, battling back from being down 4-0 in the first period, and it was Adam Ginning who kicked off that comeback for them (he also added another assist in that game), and then Jiricek who completed it, notching his first goal as a Phantom and sending the game to overtime. Across the rest of the weekend, Oliver Bonk stepped up well to set up a good bit of scoring, and came away with three assists for his troubles, while each of Helge Grans, Christian Kyrou, and Phil Tomasino chipped in one apiece.

On the other side of the world, Max Westergard is putting together a longer stint of games at the U20 level over in Sweden, and it’s going well for him, still. It was two games on the schedule for him this week, and while he was held off the board in the first, he contributed a goal and an assist in Frolunda’s overtime win over Malmo to close out the weekend. And then up at the SHL level, Jack Berglund’s game is continuing to take off. He’s really getting rolling, and the offensive side of his game is waking up quite notably — he added a goal and an assist over his last three games, bringing him up to a respectable five goals and 10 points in his 39 SHL games, to date. 

And then up in the CHL, it was a bit of a rough week for Windsor, as they lost both of their last two games on the schedule, but Jack Nesbitt still produced well over that span (with three assists in total), so that’s good enough news for us. Elsewhere, Matthew Gard is continuing on his nice run of production with Seattle, picking up another pair of goals and an assist over the weekend, while Nathan Quinn’s continuing to tear it up in the Q — he picked up three more points over his last three games (two goals and an assist) bringing him up to 33 goals and 71 points in 55 games, to date, which is good for the lead on his team and a very respectable 16th ranking on the league’s leaderboard. 

And finally, things are really ramping up around the whole of the NCAA, as the big tournament draws nearer. As we mentioned off the top, Notre Dame was knocked out of the Big 10 Tournament, dropping their game against Michigan by a 6-1 score, while Knuble was held off the board in, likely, his final game of college hockey. Back east, Boston University managed to stay alive in the Hockey East Tournament, beating Vermont 4-1 on Wednesday (no points recorded in that for either Jack Murtagh or Owen McLaughlin), and punched their ticket to face UConn tomorrow afternoon in the semifinal. And finally, Harvard also solidified a place in the semifinal of the ECAC Tournament, beating St. Lawrence in overtime in the opening round — a game in which Heikki Ruohonen certainly popped, scoring a shorthanded goal and then picking up the primary assist on the tying goal to send the game to overtime — and locking in their matchup with Cornell in the best-of-three over the weekend.