Traverse City Day 2: Folin’s OT Goal and Minnesota Wild Prospects Update

The 2014 Traverse City Prospect Tournament is through the second day and the Minnesota Wild prospects are 1-1, after a Christian Folin overtime goal put them over the St. Louis Blues yesterday.

Game 1

The tournament opened in Traverse City on Friday with the Wild facing off against the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Wild led by a goal for most of the first two periods on a pair of goals by invitee and Rosemount, MN-native Ryan Walters.

After the second though, things got a little rough for the Wild, who were up, but being outshot. Early in the third the Blue Jackets tied it and the Wild pulled ahead once more on a goal by Kurtis Gabriel. Wild assistant general manager Brent Flahr said of Gabriel’s goal, via Wild.com, “He’s not going to score pretty goals, but he’s a big, strong guy … He can make those chances himself.”

From there, Blue Jackets prospect Marko Dano, who is having a good tournament, scored a pair of goals less than a minute apart, giving the Blue Jackets a lead the Wild would never take back.

Free agent signee Zack Mitchell scored one more for Minnesota with the goaltender pulled, but Columbus was able to ice Wild hopes with an empty-netter by Alexander Wennberg.

By all accounts, the most notable part of the game for the Wild was a strong defensive corps with Christian Folin (3 shots), Mathew Dumba (1 assist, 3 shots), and Gustav Olofsson (minus-1, 1 shot) leading the charge. Flahr pronounced Olofsson as the Wild’s first star of the game.

Johan Gustafsson started in net and stopped 26 of 31 shots. Walters managed to stand out on the stat sheet with the invitee scoring two goals on three shots and finishing the game a plus-2.

Walters played four seasons with the University of Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks and after the conclusion of his senior year last year, he went to play for the Bridgeport Sound Tigers of the American Hockey League, affiliate of the New York Islanders, on an amateur tryout (ATO).

During this game Columbus lost 2014 first round draft pick Sonny Milano after he was pushed into the boards face first. The team has since announced that he will not play in the rest of the tournament due to facial fractures. The team hasn’t put a timeline on it, but Aaron Portzline of The Columbus Dispatch is reporting that Milano will miss eight weeks.

Game 2

Next up for the Wild was a late afternoon match against the St. Louis Blues on Saturday. For Minnesota, the story was similar, but with a different outcome.

The defenseman stood out, Walters surprised, and Gustafsson was once again in net, turning in a solid performance. Gustafsson stopped 32 of 35 shots, likely made a little more difficult because the Wild were able to keep the Blues without a single shot in the opening frame.

Olofsson opened the scoring for Minnesota in the first, with assists going to Tyler Graovac and Walters. Dumba followed that up by scoring early in the second, again from Walters, to give the Wild a 2-0 lead.

The Blues responded with two quick goals, one from 2014 first round draft pick and OHL standout Robby Fabbri, a name you’ll probably hear a lot and learn to rue as a Wild fan in the years to come.

Minnesota respond to take back the lead on an unassisted short-handed goal from Walters, who has three goals and two assists through the tournament’s opening two games.

But that lead would be short-lived as Fabbri tied it up with his second goal of the night late in the second. That tie would persist through the third, sending the game to overtime. In OT it was Folin stepping up to win the game for Minnesota on an unassisted goal. That’s Minnesota’s first win in the tournament since 2011. (In 2013 they lost every game and there wasn’t a tournament the year before due to the lockout.)

After the game Wild Director of Player Development Brad Bombardir pronounced Folin the team’s first star of the game saying, via Wild.com, “I thought he had a really strong game for us. I thought he showed up, played well and did some good things. And got better from yesterday. That’s the most important thing.”

What we’ve learned so far is that the defensive prospects in Minnesota appear to be as good as fans and Wild brass hoped. The conversation has largely been whether it will be Folin or Dumba (or both) joining the NHL roster, but Olofsson has certainly stepped up here and at development camp in July to keep himself a part of the conversation.

It will be interesting to see how Olofsson is able to step into the next level at camp when, instead of playing against other prospects as he did in July and this weekend, he’ll be trying to stop players like Thomas Vanek and Zach Parise.

The Wild will practice today and play their final game of the opening round against the Detroit Red Wings on Monday at 7pm.