Timo Meier Falls Just Short Of Junior Hockey Glory

In another instance of the Sharks prospects report, Timo Meier falls just short of Memorial Cup glory along with an interesting trade by Doug Wilson.

The Stanley Cup Final got under way last night, but a San Jose Shark has already lost a championship game.

After battling for the past week, the Memorial Cup Final ended with one of the best games of the season. Unfortunately, Timo Meier and the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies weren’t able to pull off the upset of the London Knights ending Meier’s junior career. But considering the fact that the Knights scored 20 goals during the three-game round robin, the Huskies put up a valiant effort.

Despite the fast-paced game, the first goal of the game wasn’t until the second period when Matthew Tkachuk tipped in a pass from Mitchell Marner for Marner’s 14th point in four games. The Huskies responded quickly with a move to the net that would make Brent Burns proud.

#Sens prospect Francis Perron responds less than 20 seconds later to tie it, pt streak extends to 11 games. https://t.co/n7mGLRE9mp
— Kat (@msconduct) May 29, 2016

Afterwards, Marner would not put up another point and the Huskies would take a 2-1 lead with 10 minutes remaining. However, the Knights are a much deeper team than Marner and made the Huskies pay when Christian Dvorak converted on a chance in the slot. After the back and forth play, fans wouldn’t have minded to see multiple overtimes in this one.

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After more fast-paced action, Tkachuk scored his second on a screened wrister to give the Knights the title. Despite the loss, the Huskies were much closer to the Memorial Cup than most people expected. Meier admitted to wanting to put his best effort forward and Sharks fans are happy to know he did that. His five goals were tied for second in the tournament with Tkachuk.

Speaking of goal scoring, Adam Helewka wasn’t far behind with three goals of his own. After pulling out an exciting victory over the Brandon Wheat Kings, the Red Deer Rebels fell short to another great effort from the Huskies which set up the final we saw earlier.

After the performance we saw from the two Sharks prospects, its fair to say that fans can expect both Meier and Helewka to have an immediate impact for the organization next season. This applies especially to Meier, who could slide into the Sharks lineup next to Joe Pavelski and Joe Thornton and fit right in.

I’m not sure if the Sharks could call up Meier to play in the Stanley Cup Final, but doing so would make for an interesting story (even if the Pittsburgh Penguins could counter with Daniel Sprong).

Lets Make a Trade

Doug Wilson has been a busy man lately. Not only has he been watching his team achieve their first Stanley Cup Finals berth in franchise history, he has also had to deal with two unsigned prospects in Dylan Sadowy and Alexis Vanier.

The day after the Sharks conference finals win, Wilson pounced on an opportunity to trade Sadowy to the Detroit Red Wings. In the aftermath, the return of a third-round pick in 2017 looks like a trade that is beneficial to both teams.

Considering there was speculation that Sadowy wasn’t willing to play behind the logjam of forwards on the San Jose Barracuda, getting a draft pick for an expiring asset is good. This also makes sense for Sadowy as he’ll get a better opportunity to flourish with the Red Wings. I’m also impressed that Wilson was able to land a higher return for a prospect than he did last year for James Sheppard, Tyler Kennedy and to an extent, Andrew Desjardins at the trade deadline.

Next: Sharks: Three Takeaways From Game One

That leaves Vanier as one of two unsigned prospects from the 2014 draft class. The Sharks still own Noah Rod‘s rights for another two years. So the focus should shift to Vanier before his rights are released on Wednesday.

However, at this point, I doubt he gets signed as he still requires work on his skating. Since skating is a vital part of playing defense, I’m not sure the Sharks are pleased with his progress despite the success he had with the Charlottetown Islanders. But I could be wrong. We’ll have to find out on June 1.