Stenberg had five preseason points, then none against Vegas's stars
The stronger Vegas lineup gives Stenberg's scoreless exhibition more weight than his Anaheim hat trick. Neither settles an eighteen-year-old's season.
Vegas dressed Eichel, Marner, Stone, Hertl and Karlsson on September 26, in the one exhibition that looked like October, and Ivar Stenberg played 13:37 that night. That was ninth of San Jose's twelve forwards, with one shot and no points. His five preseason points came in the two games before it. Four came against an Anaheim lineup missing Carlsson, Gauthier, Granlund, Killorn, Sennecke and LaCombe, hat trick included, and one came against a Vegas lineup without those five.
The Vegas game outranks the hat trick, and it is still one game. Three exhibitions of an eighteen-year-old are mostly noise in either direction.
The roster shows the consequence. San Jose's published NHL roster had 42 names last week and has 31 this morning, and Stenberg is one of five board prospects still on it. Eric Pohlkamp, third on the board and second of six San Jose defensemen in ice time on September 22, is off it and on the Barracuda preseason roster.
All thirty rows on the prospect board held for September 22 through September 28, because San Jose played only exhibitions and no board prospect's school played. The last two boards also missed four college rosters. Haoxi Wang is at Boston University, Teddy Mutryn at Boston College, Christian Kirsch at Quinnipiac and Max Heise at Denver, which puts thirteen of the thirty in college.
Sources: NHL box scores, play-by-play, player records and published roster; AHL, OHL and WHL league feeds; Liiga game files; school rosters and College Hockey News.
