Keeping Up with the Kids: An Update on the Kings' Prospects

This will be a new recurring feature (series?) that will give an abbreviated update on the Los Angeles Kings' top prospects. This is the very first edition so it may be a little rough to start and for that I apologize, but thanks to everyone for bearing with me.

Monarchs News

Here's a list of the Kings' prospects in Manchester, NH.

Warning: Small sample size alert! The Monarchs have only played 5 games total so far so take away from these totals what you will.

Over the weekend, the Monarchs split their home opener with a 5-2 victory over the Portland Pirates (Arizona Coyotes) and a 5-0 loss to the Providence Bruins (Boston Bruins).

October 24, 2014

On Friday, Berube was excellent in stopping 31 of 33 shots against. His counterpart across the rink didn't fare quite as well stopping only 23 of 28 shots. Yes, the Monarchs tried to go the route of the Kings by being outshot, out possessed and generally relying on their goaltender to bail them out.

Mayor's Manor has the full game story here: Weal tallies three assists, Monarchs win home opener

Highlights below:

October 25th, 2014

On Saturday, Bartosak was not strong in goal and the rest of the team struggled to contain Boston's top prospect David Pastrnak.

Mayor's Manor has the game story here: Monarchs falter, fall 5-0 to Bruins

Highlights below:

Jon Rosen notes that the Monarchs drew decent attendance numbers over the weekend.

The Monarchs drew healthy crowds for the first two home games, which can be a challenge early in the season when competing against other sports and entertainment options and before group sales accumulate. After drawing 5,939 on Friday, the Monarchs drew 6,052 on Saturday

Manchester, New Hampshire isn't exactly a huge sports town but the residents there do seem to appreciate their AHL team.

Modo

While William Nylander is undoubtedly the top NHL prospect in Sweden right now, Adrian Kempe seems to be doing okay. He has tallied 6 points in 15 games, is a -2, has accumulated 12 PIM and is averaging about 15:43 of TOI/game.

Kempe will join fellow NHL prospect Victor Olofsson and Nylander in representing Sweden on their Juniorkronorna Team (national under 20 junior team) in Prerov, Czech Republic at a four country tournament November 6-8.

NCAA

Jonny Brodzinski

Brodzinski and Paul Ladue are the only prospects left in college. Forbort, Mersch, Dowd and Gravel have all turned pro and Hudson Fasching was dealt to Buffalo in the trade that brought Brayden McNabb over.

Team Record: 2-2

Brodzinski scored a team leading 21 goals and 41 points in his sophomore year at St. Cloud State and was named to the 2014 All-NCHC Honorable Mention team last spring. The junior appears to be picking up where he left off with a team leading three goals and four points as well a team leading 21 shots in four games so far. He was named the NCAA second star of the week for the week ending on October 12th. The big winger (6'1, 200 lbs) has scored 20+ goals in his first two seasons at college. He'll be one to keep an eye on for the future and could be a dark horse as a depth prospect. Hey, you never know.

Paul Ladue

Apparently still at North Dakota?? I think?? He's on the active roster but I can't really find out anymore information than that. He's a bit of a late bloomer, I guess, as he was 21 and a freshman a UND but he was named to the All-NCHC Rookie Team in 2013-14, had 21 points and was a +15 on the season. I probably wouldn't expect to see him in Manchester or even Ontario anytime soon.

Joel Lowry

The 22 year-old Calgary, AB native is in his senior year at Cornell University. The team's season has not officially started yet, but they've won both their exhibition games so that's cool. Here's some background info: In 2013-14, Lowry was tied for second on the team with 24 points, including seven goals to go with a career-high 17 assists — which was also tied for the team lead. He won the Iron Man Award for over 100 games played and never missing time due to injury. He was a 5th round pick (140th overall) in 2011. I hope he turns out to be really awesome and makes the NHL so we can have another Professor on the team.

Ontario Reign

The Ontario Reign have stumbled a little bit with back-to-back losses at home after sweeping Alaska on the road to open the season.

After three games, Roach was scratched for the next two but Kitsyn has remained in the lineup. Kitsyn started off hot by attempting a lot of shots (7 in his first game) but didn't attempt any over the weekend. The Reign are four-time Pacific Division winners and it's early in the season so there's a good chance they'll bounce back. How Kitsyn plays into this, we'll see. The 22 year old Russian native struggled to adapt to the North American game for long stretches last year. It'll be interesting to see how he does now that he's had experience in the ECHL.

OHL

Guelph Storm

An offensive defenseman, Leslie impressed at training camp and earned himself an Entry Level Contract. Even though he was very good during the Monarchs' training camp, John Hoven indicated that management felt it would be better to send him back to juniors for an over-age season so that he could get more playing time due to the team being ridiculously stacked on defense with the likes of Forbort, Miller and Gravel all competing for ice time.

Kingston Frontenacs

The short statured winger who was taken in the seventh round seems to be off to a good start, scoring at a 1.45 goals/game clip.

Plymouth Whalers

He's 9th in the OHL in scoring right now so... Good job for a sixth round pick, I guess? Unless it's Connor McJesus, I'm not going to get overly excited about a kid in juniors.

Ottawa 67's

The Kings' current points leader is an alumnus of this team. And there's your #funfact of the day. Lintuniemi was a second round pick and Middleton is Mr. Irrelevant, going last overall in the seventh round.

North Bay

The third round pick is tied for second on his team in scoring.

Belleville Bulls

The sixth round pick in 2014 is 13th on his team in scoring.

QMJHL

Baie-Comeau, Drakkar

Russian enigma! Or something. I love this kid. Typical power forward, etc. He's fourth on his team in overall points. I'm more concerned about the amount of penalties he's taking than his (lack of) scoring. Jesus, kid, calm yourself.

USHL

Tri-City Storm

The 2014 fifth round pick (150th overall) is off to a blazing hot start with two shutouts in three games. His number of games played is tied for first while his save percentage and goals against average are both second in the league.