Wild Prospects Update - Dec 20

Another look at Wild prospects far and wide - this time, focusing only on the players still in juniors.

For Tyler Cuma, the Wild's 2008 first-round draftee, it's not been a good couple of weeks. The defenseman tore his MCL in an intrasquad game while attempting to make Canada's World Junior roster, and while there was brief speculation that Canada would include him on the roster anyway in the hopes he could be healthy by Christmas, eventually they decided it wasn't worth it and cut him.

He's young enough that he could conceivably play next year, but I'm sure that didn't help him feel much better; the Star Tribune reported that he was "devestated" not to make the team, especially since team GM Pat Quinn told him he would have been on the team, except for the knee injury.

Elsewhere:

• Over in the QMJHL, 2008 2nd rounder Marco Scandella is playing for Val d'Or, the worst team in the league - and consequently could be on the trade block.
• 2007 5th-rounder Cody Almond has been called out by the Kelowna president and GM as needing to score more goals. He's also referred to as "secondary scoring," which doesn't bode particularly well for his chances going forward, but is appropriate given his underwhelming 13-14--27 in 32 games.
• Carson McMillan, the team's 2007 7th-rounder, has a goal streak going into the Christmas break for Calgary in the WHL - he's tallied in three straight games, added three assists in that span, and also got in a fight.  Eighteen goals in 34 games is nobody's idea of a stellar year in juniors, but perhaps he can rumble back after the break.
• In the college ranks: Notre Dame freshman defenseman Sean Lorenz is still searching for that first career goal, though he's played in all 19 games for the #1 Irish... likewise, Vermont sophomore D Kyle Medvec hasn't scored in 15 games... Wisconsin frosh forward Chris Hickey has played in only four games for the Badgers... and Boston College senior Anthony Aiello appears to be more or less out of the Eagles' plans, a good sign he's out of the Wild's plans as well.  But he did get in a fight in the BC-BU game.
• Overseas, my inability to speak Finnish continues to haunt me.  All we know: this may be Eero Elo's Facebook listing... and it looks like Niko Hovinen has yet to play a minute in goal for his team this year.