Game 7 video, Weal audio, Dillon/Mistele notes

I’ll take a minus-one on this shift for taking a video vertically, but, yeah, there were a lot of Blackhawks fans at Honda Center yesterday. We sat upstairs in section 437, just to the right of the auxiliary press box, and were surrounded by this scene shortly after Jonathan Toews scored on the power play to put the “visitors” up two-nothing:

We did not see a very good hockey game. Was anyone kind of hoping Chicago would tack on an empty-netter to replicate last year’s 6-2 score before Matt Beleskey’s goal?

Some Sunday morning bits:

-19-year-old goaltending prospect Alec Dillon, selected in the fifth round last June, switched his commitment to WHL-Edmonton from ECAC-RPI. There were some interesting comments at the time of his selection last year, when Amateur Scout – Western Canada Brent McEwen told LA Kings Insider, “from what we understand and what he’s stated is that he will go where we want him to go, so we’ll have to decide. That’ll be up to the development guys to decide where the best [place is] for him to go.” Via the Victoria Times-Colonist article linked above, Dillon was persuaded to go the major junior route by Oil Kings general manager Randy Hansch. He’ll join an Edmonton outfit that has emerged in the last four years as a power in the west, having won the 2014 Memorial Cup and weathering the cyclical nature of major junior hockey fairly well by finishing 34-31-4-3 last season. Pittsburgh second rounder and entrenched Edmonton netminder Tristan Jarry should graduate to the pro game, which would provide a lot more starts in the 72-game WHL season than would have been available if he had played as a freshman in college hockey this year.

-Here’s a primary assist to Guy Flaming, who does a terrific job covering junior, NCAA and minor league hockey for TSN 1260 Edmonton. He’s familiar with Jordan Weal from his days with the Regina Pats, and he caught up with the Kings prospect last night on The Pipeline Show:

-Not to be too WHL-centric, here’s a reminder that Kings prospect Matt Mistele and the Ontario Hockey League’s Oshawa Generals will play in the Memorial Cup final today, taking on (sigh…) the WHL champion and junior hockey power Kelowna Rockets. Mistele, a sixth round draft pick last season, has 13 goals and 16 points in 21 postseason games. The game will be televised on the NHL Network at 4:00 p.m. PT.