Cantlon’s Corner: MID-WEEK REPORT
BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – A few pieces of hockey info to sort through as we head past the AHL All-Star game and rush headlong into the NHL trade deadline.
SCHEDULE AND CONFERENCE
Next year the AHL will be a 31-team league. This will allow them to match team-for-team with the NHL. The addition will be the Colorado Eagles, presently playing the ECHL. They will be upgraded to become the top affiliate of the Colorado Avalanche.
The St. Louis Blues will then partner with the San Antonio Rampage, which is owned by the NBA San Antonio Spurs, as their farm team.
The divisional setups will be tweaked slightly. Colorado will move to the Pacific Division which will create an imbalance issue. The league tentatively approved of the move but has not given their final, formal Board of Governor’s seal of approval on it. There is also plans to move the Cleveland Monsters to the North Division next year.
Also included in the tweaks for this coming year, again with just a tentative approval, is to abandon the roundly despised percentage points system and return the league to a points-based system during the regular season.
The one catch is that they will use the percentage points base when determining home-ice advantage in the conference finals. It was the compromise that was reached despite it still being unfair to some teams.
The rest of the league will continue with a 76 game schedule while the Pacific Division will remain at 68 games.
ANDERSSON TO RETURN TO SWEDEN
The saga of Lias Andersson will continue. He is likely he is to be returned to HC Frolunda in the next two weeks and possibly as early as this weekend in time for the Swedish Hockey League playoffs. Their post-season rosters must be finalized by Saturday.
The origins of this situation started at the recent World Junior Hockey Tournament in Buffalo. While playing in the tournament, Andersson suffered a right shoulder injury for the silver medal squad and that’s where the fun begins.
Two high-level New York Rangers sources confirmed that it was never their intention to bring Andersson to Hartford this year, but from their perspective, the situation dictated that it get done ASAP.
“To be honest we’re very unhappy with Team Sweden’s medical staff and the coaching staff of the team. The kid has a separated shoulder. They’re sticking needles in the kid’s injured area and when he showed up in New York, he could barely lift his arm.
“We have an excellent relationship with Frolunda, and we didn’t want to jeopardize that, and of course Lias’s standing.
“So we got an agreement with them to reassign him to us and let our medical team take care of him. Our team did a great job with him and they told us had he played another game at the WJC and suffered a major hit to the area there could have been some serious damage done there. So you can imagine management wasn’t enthralled that this was going on with a first-round draft pick.
“He also has to play. He is a young man and once we were able to stabilize things and do rehab work and he got medical clearance to play, we wanted him back in action. Keith and the medical and training staff here are very good as well. We got him the playing time he needs and he is being (medically) monitored heavily as you can understand.
“As part of our relationship with Frolunda and under the (CBA) agreement he will be returned there shortly. That’s our intention. The final determination hasn’t been made. We still have some issues we’re working on that I can’t discuss.
“We have a major organizational meeting coming up before the (trade) deadline to assess where we are and the future of the organization. If he goes, once the Swedish playoffs are over, he will come back to Hartford.”
Andersson, as expected, was not going to comment specifically.
“I haven’t heard anything and will just what till I hear what they say. I’m here playing tomorrow. When I hear from my agent, then I’ll know. Right now, I am a member of the Hartford Wolf Pack.”
Andersson is feeling better but admits he still has some work ahead physically.
“(I’m) working hard here. (I’m) learning from my teammates new things every day. My shoulder is not 100%, maybe 80-85%, but so much better now than it was,” Andersson said while shaking his head signifying how painful it had been. “(The shoulder is) not where I want it to be. I need to make it stronger. It takes time.”
Trades in New York are expected and clearly, there are going to be moves made that will impact the Wolf Pack in some form or another.
The roster in Hartford was directly affected by Vinni Lettieri’s recall as a result of the concussion suffered by Pavel Buchnevitch. On Monday it came to light that Jimmy Vesey also suffered a concussion while playing in the Nashville game. That is also likely to require another recall from the Wolf Pack.
One piece of other player news related to Hartford is not good. It comes from just across the hallway from the Wolf Pack. Current UConn sophomore goalie Adam Huska is out since with what has been classified as a sprained left wrist (catching hand). He is scheduled to be evaluated again in another seven-to-ten days after last week’s initial exam.
That is now not the case and the injury appears to be far more serious than originally thought.
“His wrist is broken, so his season is done. I can’t really say how this will affect how the organization will look upon it (in offering a contract), though my gut says, ‘You miss the final five or six weeks of the regular season and the Hockey East playoffs, it’s never good for any player.”
It would seem likely that Huska will return to UConn for his junior season.
Another goalie on the Rangers’ radar is Igor Shestyorkin, who was a 2014 draft fourth-round pick (118th overall) who is the top goalie with SKA St. Petersburg (Russia-KHL). He is on the OAR (Olympic Athletes of Russia) team that will compete at the Pyeon Chang Winter Olympics in South Korea starting next week.
“ We would like him here now, but that’s just not possible. He is under contract for another year (to SKA St. Petersburg) there, so because there is no transfer agreement between the NHL and Russia, only he could buy himself out of deal there. That’s how they do business there.
“We anticipate he would be coming over for the 2019-20 season and he is having a great season there as he did last year.”
Lastly, another Russian player who could come back this year, but more likely next year, is Alexei Bereglazov.
The defenseman played in the first thirteen games before exercising his contract clause and returned to Russia where he plays for his KHL team, Metallurg Magnitogorsk. It seemed odd then and remains still, but there were other non-hockey factors involved.
“The kid had been married last summer and I don’t understand why the Russians are always the last to be able to assimilate here. For the Swedes, Finns, and the Czech, the cultural transition seems easier, not perfect, not without issues, but with the Russians, it’s always the hardest and longest. I hope maybe after their playoffs, maybe he might come back here and again we’re looking at everything in the organization shortly. My guess its more likely next year.”
Expect shortly an official announcement from Arizona State University that they will be building an on-campus arena for the newest and latest NCAA Division I college program.
The Arizona State Sun Devils, in year three as an NCAA Independent Division I program, were in town against Yale this past weekend. They gave the Bulldogs fits before Yale took both games in overtime Friday and Saturday by the score of 3-2 and 4-3 respectively.
The program, which received a $30 million endowment, initially couldn’t work out an agreement to build a new arena in the eastern part of the City of Phoenix with the NHL Arizona Coyotes, so they’re going solo with an on-campus facility in Tempe. It will replace their tiny home facility, The Oceanside Ice Arena, to sit alongside the Wells Fargo Arena that houses ASU basketball.
They are also looking to get into conference discussions with the WCHA. It didn’t produce an agreement and there have been discussions only with the NCHC conference. Several media reports say they are trying to go in with the Pac-12 conference to form its first hockey conference. That would mean several schools, most notably USC and UCLA may take the plunge. Toss in UNLV and they could form a Division I division along with ASU. This comes according to a West coast source that it’s going to take a few more years. Read about it HERE
Players are not the foreboding issue. Establishing a conference, getting enough local and regional opponents, and having a viable on-campus rink to meet NCAA requirements are the three biggies.
Ex-Pack defenseman, Conor Allen, who’s been limited to 17 games this season with injuries in Rochester, has made the move to Europe.
Allen signed with EHC Wolfsburg Grizzlies (Germany-DEL) and will arrive there Thursday where he will wear jersey number 28. He will play three games before the DEL, and other European leagues, take an Olympic break which the NHL chose not to do. His deal is for the rest of the regular season and the post-season.
Mike Vaskivuo, who played at Westminster and Salisbury Prep, has moved to his fourth pro organization this year. He played with the ECHL’s Orlando and Jacksonville to start the year. Vaskivuo left to play in France with the HC Brest in the French second division. Vaskivuo just signed through the end of the year with the Nottingham Panthers (England-EIHL).
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