Minnesota Wild Prospect Report: Draeger Has Surgery, Belpedio Scores First, Lang On a Tear
Louie Belpedio
Belpedio scored his first collegiate goal in the second of a pair of games against Bowling Green this weekend. Belpedio and the Miami Redhawks split the weekend and each will start the season 1-1.
Belpedio was a 2014 draft puck who played in the USA Development Program with the Wild’s 2014 first round draft pick Alex Tuch, who was held pointless in Boston College’s season opening loss this weekend. Belpedio and the Redhawks will make their way to Minnesota over Halloween weekend when they take on the University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs.
John Draeger
Michigan State coach Tom Anastos announced at a press day that junior defenseman John Draeger, for the second straight year, will start the year recovering from off-season surgery. This summer Draeger had hip surgery, but unlike last year he’ll be back to start the season.
Last year Draeger wasn’t able to get into game action to until late November and was dogged throughout the season by the injury. Chris Dilks has a nice piece about Draeger’s situation that you should take a look at for the full story.
Pavel Jenys
Power forward Pavel Jenys scored his second goal of the young Ontario Hockey League (OHL) season this past week. He’s got two goals and an assist for the Sudbury Wolves through eight games. It looks middling, until you see how tough of a time the Wolves have been having of late. They’re 1-7 on the season and had a rough week where they played both the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds and the Owen Sound Attack, the only two teams who remain undefeated in the OHL.
The road doesn’t get any easier coming up for the Wolves. Over the next five games they’ll play the Greyhounds again and take on Connor McDavid, Dylan Strome, and the Eerie Otters twice. McDavid and Strome are currently tied for the OHL scoring lead with 18 points each through six games. The other two games have them taking on the cellar-dwelling Peterborough (1-3-1-1) and the Niagara Ice Dogs (0-6).
The Wolves 1-7 record has them ranked fourth of five in the Central Division.
Chase Lang
Chase Lang continues to have an outstanding campaign for the Calgary Hitmen in the Western Hockey League (WHL). Lang, through seven games, has seven goals and four assists, including two goals Sunday night against fellow Wild prospect Reid Duke and his Brandon Wheat Kings. That’s a total that has him tied for 17th overall in points throughout the WHL, despite the fact that he’s played fewer games than any other skater in the top 20 scorers.
Speaking of Duke, he’s played four games for the Wheat Kings since being traded from the Lethbridge Hurricanes and has logged two assists, six penalty minutes, and a minus-2 rating.
Mario Lucia
Mario Lucia scored his first goal of the 2014-15 season for Notre Dame in an opening weekend tournament that had them going 0-2 after being shutout by the University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs and dropping another by a score of 3-2 to RPI.
Lucia opened the scoring against RPI with a nifty no-look backhand from the slot. Take a look at the replay below.