Traverse City Day 4: Wild Lose Again

We’re four days and three games into the Traverse City Prospects Tournament, where the Wild have are currently 1-2, having dropped Monday’s game against the Detroit Red Wings 5-1. (If you missed our recap of the first two games, you can catch that here.)

While 5-1 sounds like a bloodbath, it didn’t start off that poorly. Tyler Bertuzzi, nephew of the Red Wings Todd Bertuzzi, was the only player to score in the first off an assist from top prospect — and former Guillaume Gélinas teammate, Anthony Mantha. Mantha would score again in the third.

The second saw the Red Wings draw first blood, but the Wild responded quickly with a goal from Czech power forward Pavel Jenys off an assist from Matt Dumba. The 18-year-old, 2014 draft pick Jenys had not done much in the tournament so far, but he got the Wild’s only goal of the night and was tied for the team lead in shots with three. Zack Mitchell, Chase Lang, and Dumba all also had three shots. Gustav Olofsson and Dumba both finished with a team worst minus-3.

Much of the loss could be attributed to what, by many accounts, was a strong performance by Wings netminder Jared Coreau, who stopped 27 of 28 Wild shots. At the other end of the rink invitee Brandon Whitney, a 20-year-old goalie for the Victoriaville Tigres in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL), was in net for the Wild. Johan Gustafsson got the start in the first two games, but he wasn’t even on the bench as the team had Alexandre Belanger backing up for game 3.

While I haven’t seen any notes on why they made the change, you can assume, with Columbus having already clinched a spot in the championship game (and the Traverse City championship not meaning all that much) and Gustafsson having his place in the organization pretty well solidified, it made sense to see what Whitney could bring to the table. While Belanger is already in the Minnesota system, he will spend this season in the QMJHL, so the team knows where they stand with him.

Things didn’t go great for Whitney who finished with a .818 save percentage after allowing four goals on 22 shots. (The final tally of the night was an empty netter by Bertuzzi.)

Wild.com has assistant general manager Brent Flahr praising Dumba as the team’s player of the game, while also giving credit to young forward Reid Duke for being “much more engaged” in Monday’s game.

The Wild will conclude the tournament today at 3:30pm with a game against the New York Rangers.