2012 NHL Prospects Tournament a Casuality of the Ongoing NHL Labor Talks
Follow
The Red Wings have officially announced the cancellation of the 2012 NHL Prospect tournament which was set to kick off on September 15th. This years tournament would have included teams from Detroit, Columbus, Dallas, St. Louis, Buffalo, New York, Minnesota and Carolina. With the uncertainty around the ongoing collective bargaining agreement negotiations, this was a decision that was inevitable.
The tournament has been in existence since 1998 and has seen 351 players see at least one game of NHL action. Tournament alumni have played in an astonishing 53,593 total NHL games since its inception. The top ten all time point producing Alumni include:
| Name | Points | NHL
Games |
| 1. Ilya Kovalchuk (ATL 2001) | 785 | 779 |
| 2. Dany Heatley (ATL 2001) | 742 | 751 |
| 3. Pavel Datsyuk (DET 2001) | 718 | 731 |
| 4. Henrik Zetterberg (DET 2002) | 624 | 668 |
| 5. J.P. Dumont (CHI, 1998) | 523 | 822 |
| 6. David Legwand (NSH, 1998) | 501 | 846 |
| 7. Scott Hartnall (NSH, 2000) | 474 | 843 |
| 8. Martin Erat (NSH, 2000 / 2001) | 460 | 687 |
| 9. Alexander Semin (WSH, 2003) | 408 | 468 |
| 10. Dan Cleary (CHI, 1998) | 362 | 821 |
This will be the first year since 1998 that Traverse City has not hosted the tournament. During the 2004 NHL lockout a four team tournament took place despite the lack of a Red Wings training camp that year. The Red Wings have committed to return to Centre I.C.E. for the 2013 tournament.