The Dubuque Fighting Saints skated past the Chicago Steel 6-4 in the final preseason game on Saturday night. Here are my standouts and top performers from the contest.
The Dubuque Fighting Saints skated past the Chicago Steel 6-4 in the final preseason game on Saturday night. Here are my standouts and top performers from the contest.
#4 Kristian Kostadinski, LD (Dubuque)
Kostadinski picked up his first and second preseason points on two beautiful assists. The Boston Bruins draft pick showed good patience to allow the play to develop before finding Josh Giuliani in front on his first helper. Later in the game, Kostadinski connected with a centering feed to Torkel Jennersjo’s stick and in on the power play.
#23 Cooper Dennis, F (Dubuque)
Cooper Dennis, man. He is going to have a big year. The Michigan commit picked up a goal and an assist on Saturday. Dennis skated around the back of the net and found Melvin Ekman on the backdoor before scoring in the same fashion later in the game. He finished the preseason with three goals and four points, all coming in his last two games.
#10 Jonathan Morello, F (Dubuque)
Morello capped off a solid preseason with a three-assist night, which all came in Dubuque’s three-goal first period. The 18-year-old collected secondary assists on Ekman and Dennis’ goals before tallying the primary assist on Michael Barron’s goal. Morello got better as the preseason unfolded and finished the exhibition schedule with six points on two goals and four assists.
#19 Josh Giuliani, F (Dubuque)
Giuliani had his best game of the preseason on Saturday night. He showed good positional awareness to get in front of the net for Kostadinski’s centering feed and finished with a team-high five shots on goal.
#7 Kolin Sisson, F (Chicago)
No shots on goal for Sisson on Saturday, but he was still instrumental in helping the Steel make the game a little more interesting in the third period. The Providence commit collected an assist after carrying the puck in deep before a centering feed caught Yurchuk’s stick and in. While he got a minor penalty for it, Sisson also showed good physicality for standing up Heikki Ruohonen in open ice.