I will have an Albany update next week (after I attend Sunday's game in AC) and should have a posting about the Devils prospects on the Minnesota Golden Gophers coming up shortly. In the interim I thought I would pass along the following links/information regarding Scott Wedgewood, Derek Rodwell and Jon Merrill. Links after the jump.
Scott Wedgewood-SBNation's Western College Hockey Blog summarized a recent Wedgewood shutout.
In the CHL/Russian Subway Series Wedgewood played half of a game getting the victory in a 4-0 OHL win vs. the Russian Select Team.
Wedgewood was not selected to attend the Canadien Team World Junior Championship Selection Camp. You can view the camp participants here. Fellow OHL goalies JP Anderson and Mark Visentin did get invited to camp. Statistics for all three are below:
| Player | Team | GP | Mins | Shots | GA | SO | Avg. | % | Wins | Losses | OTL |
| JP Anderson | Mississauga | 19 | 1078 | 485 | 39 | 3 | 2.17 | 0.92 | 16 | 2 | 0 |
| Mark Visentin | Niagara IceDogs | 17 | 1031 | 490 | 43 | 1 | 2.5 | 0.912 | 10 | 4 | 2 |
| S.Wedgewood | Plymouth Whalers | 22 | 1185 | 610 | 49 | 2 | 2.48 | 0.92 | 12 | 6 | 0 |
Should Wedgewood have been invited? I can't speculate on the attributes of Anderson or Visentin, but stats would seem to dictate that he could have been.
Also, while Wedgewood didn't win the most recent OHL Player of the Week Award, he was mentioned in an article pointing out his strong play over the past week:
In goal, Scott Wedgewood of the Plymouth Whalers had another strong week with two wins including a shutout victory and a goals-against-average of 0.820 and save percentage of .974.
Jon Merrill-One prospect who should be under consideration to represent him home country in the World Junior Championships is Jon Merrill the Devils 2nd Round pick of 2010. Charles Schwarz on his blog of Wisconsin Hockey, projects the American team here and includes Merrill among his choices. The USA will announce their camp roster on December 7th.
Merrill, one of the top scoring defensemen in the CCHA, was interviewed on Michigan coach's Red Berensen radio show. Simple interview, starts in second show segment.
Derek Rodwell-If you recall, last week I was able to ask Brad Schlossman about Derek Rodwell and his progress at the University of North Dakota. In that post Brad had talked about Rodwell's speed:
I never heard anything about his speed, though, so when he blew past a Maine defenseman for a shorthanded goal a couple weeks later, I couldn't believe what I saw. Devils head of scouting David Conte was in the building that night and I'm sure his mouth was watering a little bit. So, to me, his physical game and grit were expected. His speed has stood out because it was so unexpected.
As a follow up, Brad was kind enough to send me a link of the goal. Rodwell's scoring play develops at the :43 second mark: