For the past few seasons, the Cannon has completed a Top 25 fan rating of Jackets prospects. It’s easy to rate those prospects playing in Cleveland, but most commenters don’t have a lot of information on prospects who are playing elsewhere. Roll Call is our monthly look at some of the Columbus Blue Jackets non-Monsters prospects. Europe, Russia, and the college ranks.
Stats are as of 12/27/2019.
Kirill Marchenko
11 GP – SKA – St. Petersburg (KHL); 14 GP – SKA-Neva St. Petersburg (VHL)
The last time we checked on Kirill, he had been called up to the big club in the KHL but had spent most of this time in the press box. Since then, he’s cracked the line up for St. Pete and has contributed – 11 GP with a 3-3-6 line. Upward movement is huge, imo, when it comes to the prospects abroad. Especially when St. Pete is the top team in the Western Conference right now.
Additionally, Marchenko is on the Russian roster for the World Junior Hockey Championships which just started on December 26th. He notched as assist in Russia’s first game.
Dmitri Voronkov
14 GP – Bars Kazan (KHL)
Staying with the 19 yo forwards in the KHL and the WJC theme, Dmitri Voronkov remains involved for Bars Kazan, which leads the Eastern Conference in the KHL. It’s a good sign that the two primary CBJ prospects in the KHL are contributing to conference leaders. Voronkov had an injury that knocked him out for 6 weeks – he missed all of November. So his stat line isn’t too impressive at 1-3-4, but he’s also added an assist in the WJC.
I tend to think that playing on a top team in the KHL is certainly better than the AHL, so I don’t know if we’d want to see these two in Cleveland soon. But that’s completely just an opinion.
Tim Berni
27 GP – ZSC Lions (NLA)
Tim Berni has slowed his roll on the offense side of things. He’s rocking a 4-4-8, which means he’s only tallied a goal in the last 9 games. I suppose that’s alright considering that he’s considered a defensive defenseman (or at least, he is in this article). The Lions are part of a 4 team logjam at the top of the NLA, so Berni is playing for a good team as well. He’s also part of the Swiss WJC contigent.
Liam Foudy
20 GP – London Knights (OHL)
Liam Foudy is the name most of you will be familiar with since he is the CBJ’s 1st round pick from 2018. He’s been pretty, pretty good so far with 13-13-26 in those 20 games. Most importantly, he’s a center. Which means most of us think he’s already the #2 center on the team. No pressure! Also…the ‘stache.
Foudy is the 4th CBJ prospect representing their nation in the WJC.
Eric Hjorth – Keep him. 33 games, scoring. (OHL)
33 GP – Sarnia Sting (OHL)
Hjorth has continued to put up points, somewhat unexpectedly. He’s at 9-13-22 so far – a slight drop off from his first 14 games. He’s a defenseman, so all of this is gravy as far as I’m concerned. He only has 14 PIM in his 33 GP, so he plays it clean. Sarnia seems like a mid-pack team so I don’t know how much Hjorth can really impact their place in the standings.
Tyler Angle
30 GP – Windsor Spitfires (OHL)
Tyler Angle continues to put up points. He had 19 in 13 games the last time we checked him out. Now he’s up to 19-19-38 in 30 games for a healthy 1.27 ppg. For reference, Angle had 44 points last season for Windsor. That’s a nice progression. He may just be a nice story from Juniors, but he isn’t signed yet by Columbus. He could be a nice addition to the Monsters.
Markus Karlberg
5 GP – Leksands IF (SHL); 5 GP – AIK (Allsvenskan); 16 GP – Leksands IF J20 (SuperElit)
It’s been tough to keep track of Karlberg. In early November, he had completed a stint with AIK in the Allsvenskan. I mistakenly thought that was the top league in Sweden. That’s actually the 2nd tier. Since then, Karlberg DID get called up to the big show with Leksands in the SHL. He hasn’t scored yet in the SHL but it’s a good sign that he’s gotten called up. His contributions for the Junior team in 16 games was 8-9-17. It was a consistent run – he had 8 pts after his first 8 games. I am not sure why, but I get the vibe that this kid is worth keeping an eye on. The knock on him will always be his size – but if he can produce anyway, what does it matter?
Carson Meyer
15 GP – Ohio State (NCAA)
Mandatory inclusion of former Miami Redhawk, current Ohio State Buckeye Meyer. He has 5-6-11 in 15 games for the Buckeyes. Perhaps he’ll be a Monster next year.
Daniil Tarasov
20 GP – Assat (Liiga)
Tarasov continues to get regular playing time for Assat and has shown marked improvement. After his first 10 games, he had a 2.84 GAA and .882 SV%. Not great. After 10 more games, his season stats are 2.48 GAA and .906 SV%. It’s not an easy to task to figure out his game log because it does not appear to be unusual for a coach to play both goalies in a game in Liiga. Still, some rudimentary math skill could point towards a GAA around 2.00 and a SV% around .940 to make those season averages work out. Flimsy? Sure. But…also exciting. Tarasov doesn’t want to stay in Liiga long – and with Jarmo potentially whiffing on Elvis, there’s going to be room for Veini Vehvilainen or Tarasov to make a move next season. A move to ride pine and get 1 start every month, but still…that’s a chance.
That’s it for this month’s look at the non-Monsters prospects. This list was not exhaustive and focused on players who had played a significant number of games. If you want to chime in on another prospect in the comments, please feel free to do so! If you have more details on someone I’ve mentioned, toss those in as well. Or, if you follow a prospect and want to pass along information for the next monthly update, you can reach out to me directly.