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Charlie Angels close out final day of Prospect Tournament with massive victory over Alpha Rococos

It might have been a middling tournament for the Charlie Angels rookie team, finishing the 10-game tournament with a middling 5-5 record, but they went out with a bang, winning 10-4 over the first-place Alpha Rococos team that included two projected first-round picks for the upcoming SMJHL draft in Jimmy Wagner and Axel Meszaros. The game got off to a very fast start, as on the first play of the game, Angels winger Steve Harrington entered the zone, dropped the puck back for Angels defenseman Samuel Mains, and went to the front of the net. Mains took a wrist shot that looked to be going just over the net before deflecting into the goal. The Rococos protested, however, and video review showed that the puck had bounced off centre Rocco Berni's stick and gone in, which invalidated the early score. The quick-strike capabilities of this band of rookies proved to be too much, however, and two minutes later, Chris Cerullo came out from behind the Alpha net and found defenseman Erben Kasius with a quick pass. Kasius slammed the shot home to open the scoring for the Charlies. From there, the floodgates were opened, as right winger Viktor Erlingsson added the second goal of the game two minutes later. After a long period hemmed in the Rococos zone midway through the first period, Kasius got the puck at the blueline and fired it through traffic and into the net to make the game 3-0. Despite a second review initiated by an irate Rococos coach who believed that goalie Jason Voorhees had been bumped by Angels winger Brandon Burnett, the goal stood. The energized Angels then got two goals in 39 seconds from their second-leading scorer Paddy Kane O'Reilly II, chasing Voorhees from the net after just 13:25 and five goals. Backup John Curtis came in, and the Rococos seemed to get some life from this as they broke the shutout of Angels goalie Skyler Stevens, who got the start in this final game, on a goal by Love Beck. Despite the goal, the Angels went into the locker room after the first period pumped by a four-goal lead.

The second period was more of the same as the Charlie Angels came out flying to start the period. Three minutes into the period, Steve Harrington added his fifth goal of the tournament on a net-front pass from Erlingsson, and five minutes later, the unexpected happened. Rococos defenseman Thierry Parent had the puck at centre ice and went to shoot the puck into the zone. However, the puck hit the stanchion of the glass and landed on the stick of Viktor Erlingsson. The Angels had a three-on-one the other way with Harrington and Kasius trailing. Two passes later, the puck was in the net and hats were flying as Erben Kasius completed the rare hat trick from a defenseman. Kevin Trabs added on to the rout two minutes later with a goal to make the score 8-1 for Charlie Angels only halfway through the game. With the game more than out of hand, the rest of the period proceeded largely without event.

The beginning of the third period provided possibly the strangest goal of the tournament. With the score 8-1, the Angels had their fourth line out on the ice to start the period. Chris Cerullo won the faceoff and the puck was tipped back to defenseman Julian Kiveski. The rearguard wound up and took a long, knuckling slapshot from the red line that dropped about two feet before sneaking in under the glove of John Curtis. After this unlikely goal, Curtis was pulled in favour of Voorhees returning to the net, who mercifully finished the game. The Rococos would add goals from Thierry Parent, the enigmatic (Clean) Andrei Kostitsyn, and Love Beck's second goal of the game, while the Angels fourth line got one more goal on a rebound down low by Dusty Bender. With an emphatic 10-4 win to close out the tournament, the three stars were swept by the Charlie Angels, as Viktor Erlingsson and Steve Harrington, who each got three points in the game's first half before mostly being pulled in garbage time, and Erben Kasius with his hat trick, got the honours.