The Traverse City Prospects Tournament begins today with the opening game between the Dallas Stars and the Minnesota Wild on the ice at 3 p.m.  The Maple Leafs play today at 6:30 p.m. vs the St. Louis Blues.

The Maple Leafs announced their Traverse City Roster last week, and that roster and all the others announced are included here:

Maple Leafs Announce Prospect Roster for Traverse City

There are four games each day, Friday, Saturday and Monday, and all teams are in action each day. Tuesday is the playoff day, with the series of four games to determine the order of finish beginning at noon. Every team plays on the final day as well.

Schedule of games.

The point of the prospects tournament isn’t to win it, however; it’s to get all the draft picks and invited players on the ice to see how they’re all performing. Expect to see the playing roster change from day to day. The Leafs have only two goalies announced now, with the injury to Joseph Woll, so Ian Scott will play a lot.

With neither of the Leafs’ most recent first round draft picks participating, Nick Robertson, Mac Hollowell, Egor Korshkov, Mikhail Abramov, Riley Stotts and Semyon Der-Arguchintsev will be the top-drafted prospects on hand, along with Scott.

Kalle Loponen, who was just added to the roster, is the only one of these prospects to be in something like game shape already. He played in some Finnish national team games, and then in a recent preseason tournament in Russia with his Finnish junior team. Nick Robertson was at the WJSS, but that was a month ago, and he didn’t see much action in the Peterborough Petes preseason, although Semyon Der-Arguchintsev did play a few games. They and the other Canadian junior players will have at least been through their own training camps by now.

Officiating

The NHL held a Combine for officials in Buffalo this year as they have done for several years. They take a proactive approach to bringing former players and minor-league and college officials into the higher officiating ranks. Thirty of the officials from that combine will be working in various prospect tournaments over this week, including four women.

[Kendall] Hanley is entering her 12th season of officiating and is a licensed linesman with the IIHF, NCAA women’s hockey (Divisions I and III) and the National Women’s Hockey League. She is also entering her fourth season as a linesman in USA Hockey’s Officiating Development Program, where she has officiated in the USHL, NAHL and NA3HL junior hockey leagues. The 35-year-old played Division III varsity hockey for Elmira College from 2005-07 and SUNY Oswego from 2007-09 while completing her Bachelor of Science in zoology.

”My passion and love for the game started at a young age and after college I was not quite ready to hang up my skates,” said Hanley, who will officiate at the 2019 NHL Prospect Tournament, which runs Friday through Monday in Traverse City. “I met some amazing people in Texas who were very involved in officiating who supported and mentored me early on. Officiating provides a team environment, great comradery and competition and helps me give back and support the game I love.”

Broadcast Coverage

In America, the tournament is available on Fox Sports Go to fans in their broadcast area.

Streaming Coverage

The New York Rangers have indicated they will offer streams of their games on their website, so look for that if you’re interested in an early look at Kaapo Kakko.

For games vs the hosts, like today’s Wings-Chicago game, the Red Wings are streaming via Twitter.

For all games involving the Leafs, they are going to be streaming via their website at http://mapleleafs.com/  Check there closer to the game times (6:30 p.m. today) for a link to the game. We’ll update on Twitter as well.

Link: https://www.nhl.com/mapleleafs/video/live-blues-vs-maple-leafs/t-277437436/c-68770503

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Maple Leafs Prospects