While the Traverse City Prospects Tournament wrapped up tonight, there were other rookie competitions of note. We’ll cover the big three Edmonton prospects’ debut in the Young Stars Tournament tomorrow, but the Boston Bruins and New York Islanders also had a rookie game that caused quite a stir.
With a pair of top-five picks from the 2010 NHL Draft on display -- Boston’s Tyler Seguin and New York’s Nino Niederreiter -- an impressive crowd of 11,571 came out to see two teams of fresh faces at TD Garden, but it was Jordan Caron who stole the show with a hat trick, as the Bruins came out on top, 5-2.
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And the two headliners made their presence known in both aspects of the game.
Seguin tallied a pair of assists and jostled with the Isles’ Travis Hamonic, while Niederreiter scored New York’s first goal of the night off Hamonic’s deflection at 11:51 of the second and later dropped the gloves in the third period for a joust with Boston’s Tyler Randell.
Robin Figren would also score for the Islanders in the third period.
Niederreiter’s fight with Randell was one of several on a night that saw a delay in the third period to clean blood off of the ice. The rules established before the start of the game declared that any player who fought twice would be ejected, but nobody received more than one fighting major.
So far, so good for both prospects, it seems.