Barrie Colts Duo Highlight November Prospect Performances

November is the month where the hockey season kicks into high gear. Teams and players spend October getting their legs under them; by November, hopefully everyone’s firing on all cylinders. The month of November was a challenge for a lot of the Calgary Flames’ prospects, particularly their goaltenders.

Here’s the highlights from the organization’s non-NHL assets last month.

Good news and bad news for Calgary’s best depth pick from 2015’s Draft. The good news is his torrid offensive pace continued, as he put up 12 points (including seven goals) in nine games. Unfortunately, he earned himself an eight-game suspension with an incident in the November 26 game, so he’ll be trying to get his game legs back when he returns in mid-December. He had four multi-point games in November.

Mangiapane’s Barrie teammate had another good month. After a slow start in October, Andersson was a point-per-game – all of them assists – in November, racking up 11 assists in 11 games (and going +11 in the process). He had three multi-point games.

Is it partially a product of really great shooting percentage? Yes. But is Mark Jankowski still producing steadily as a senior? Also yes. Jankowski had four goals and six points in Providence College’s five November contests, including two game-winning goals.

We sleep on late-round picks sometimes, but John Gilmour is a senior defenseman on a good college team who’s producing just shy of a point-per-game. Granted, Providence is getting all the bounces right now, but Gilmour had five points in five November games, and that’s pretty cool.

He’s in Calgary now, and for good reason. Granlund had four goals and six points in six games for Stockton, leading to his summons to the big leagues on November 26. Simply put: Granlund is an excellent AHLer who might eventually find his niche in the NHL. Or not.

Best known as Dougie’s big brother, Freddie had two goals and eight points in nine November games for Stockton. He’s like an older Markus Granlund, in that he’s a really good AHLer who hasn’t found a way to catch on in the NHL yet. He may eventually become Ben Walter, a career AHLer but a valuable one for NHL organizations to have in the fold.

Drew Shore also put up eight points (a goal and seven assists) for Stockton in November. Ryan Culkin returned to hockey this month with the ECHL’s Adirondack Thunder. He had three assists in six games, playing fairly well in his first hockey since early February. We’ll see how long he’ll be sticking around in Glens Falls, or if he’s called up to the AHL. Pavel Karnaukhov returned to the Calgary Hitmen line-up after missing a few weeks with an upper-body injury, getting an assist in his one game in November. Keegan Kanzig also returned to the WHL’s Hitmen, scoring two goals and adding an assist in nine games – though he still takes a lot of penalties. Stockton went through a rotation of goalies and here’s how it went: if you performed well (Jon Gillies and Kevin Poulin) you got injured, while if you weren’t great (Eric Hartzell and Kent Simpson) you stuck around. The hope is the return of Joni Ortio will stabilize things in December. But the goaltending struggles weren’t limited to the NHL or AHL, as both Mason McDonald (QMJHL) and Nick Schneider (WHL) lost way more games than they won in November.