BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – With the Stanley Cup Final now in full swing, news continues to be made around the globe in the world of the Hartford Wolf Pack and hockey news in general.
PLAYER AND COACHES & MOVEMENT
Ex-Pack, Magnus Hellberg, after being a part of the Swedish gold medal winning World Championship team switches teams in the KHL going from Kunlun (China-KHL) to SKA St. Petersburg (Russia-KHL) for a million dollars a year according to Swedish on-line sports publications.
Ex-Pack, Matt Carey goes from Leksands IF to Karlskrona HK in the Swedish Allsvenskan League.
Kasperi Ojantakanen of UConn (HE) has signed with the Finnish Elite team KooKoo for next season. He is the 15th NCAA player to sign with a European team. OJ, as he was known to his UConn teammates, is also the seventh Husky to sign a pro deal since their season ended earlier this spring in Boston in a loss to the BU Terriers in the Hockey East playoffs.
Charles Corcoran (New Canaan) goes from Brown University (ECACHL) to Dundee (Scotland-EIHL) next year. Scott Moldenhauer departs from Western Michigan (NCHC) to head to San Diego. The second transfer to Canadian college hockey occurs when Ryan Burton leaves Union College (ECACHL) to play for Brock University (OUAA) in Ontario.
That makes 197 overall American collegian’s to sign a pro deal.
UMASS-Amherst gives a two-year extension to head coach Greg Carvel. Denver University (NCHC) tabs assistant coach David Carle to replace Jim Montgomery who took the top job in Dallas with the Stars.
USA Hockey moved quickly to replace David Quinn, who took the Rangers job last week. The American hockey organization chose a new WJC head coach in Mike Hastings from University Minnesota-Mankato (NCHC).
Milford native, Colin Sullivan, who played at Fairfield Prep (CTPUB) and Salisbury Prep (CTPREP) leaves Atlanta (ECHL) and heads to HC Chamonix (France-FREL).
Matt Caito, (Salisbury Prep) who played with Rapid City (ECHL) and nine games with Iowa signs with EC Graz (Austria-AEHL).
The Wheeling Nailers (ECHL) sign former UMASS-Lowell (HE) head coach Mark Dennehy as their new bench boss in the fall.
Austin Cangelosi leaves Binghamton and signs with Lillehammer (Norway-NEL) next fall.
Cangelosi’s signing brings the AHL to Euro list up to 17 players and has seen 12 AHL teams losing at least one player thus far.
Ex-Pack Nigel Dawes was named KHL Top Goal Scorer of the year. Early last month it was announced he was going from Barys Astana (Kazakhstan-KHL) to Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg (Russia-KHL) next season.
Paul Jerrard, long time AHL player and assistant coach, following being let go by the Calgary Flames, becomes an assistant coach with the University of Nebraska-Omaha (NCHC). Jerrard was drafted by the Rangers in 1983.
Former Ranger, John Vanbiesbrouck, after having spent five years as the GM of the Muskegon Lumberjacks (USHL), has been named assistant Executive Director of Hockey Operations for USA Hockey.
Two sons of Hartford Whalers made collegiate commitments.
Caden Brown, the son of Jeff Brown, currently with the St. Louis Jr. Blues (TIEHL), will be a University Wisconsin Badger (Big 10) in 2021-2022. A player going collegiate a little earlier is Ethan Manderville, the son of Kent Manderville, who split this season with Kanata and the Ottawa Jr. Senators (CCHL) this past season has committed to the Colgate University Red Raiders (ECACHL) in 2019-20.
He was a 2016 draftee of Cedar Rapids (USHL) and Ottawa (OHL) and is NHL Draft eligible this summer.
Goalie Nick Ellis (Pomfret Prep) who played this year with Bakersfield (AHL) and a couple of games with Wichita (ECHL) has called it career early. He is returning to the Nutmeg state to be an assistant coach and teacher with New Milford-based, Canterbury Prep.
Springfield signed a contract extensions with Bobby Farnham, who made $350K AHL last year. The parent club, the Florida Panthers, signs Josh Brown for a two year, two-way deal ($650-700K-NHL) and ($85-100K-AHL) and Linus Bystrom to a one year, two way deal ($650K-NHL-$100K-AHL).
HC Bat Yam won the short season Israeli Hockey League title beating CIHS Metula 5-2 in the championship.
AHL CALDER CUP FINAL
The Texas Stars knocked off the Rockford Ice Hogs 2-1 in overtime Monday to win the Western conference championship and advance to the Calder Cup finals against the Toronto Marlies.
The series will be a 2-3-2 format starting in Toronto this weekend. The first two games will be on Saturday and Sunday at 4:00 pm with all seven games being broadcast on the NHL Network. They will pick the TSN-2 feed. When the series shifts to Austin,TX for Games 3, 4, and 5, they can be seen from a Stars perspective on Fox Sports Southwest.
In their lineup, The Marlies have Ben Smith (Avon/Westminster Prep), ex-Pack, Chris Mueller, and Mason Marchment, son of ex-Whaler Bryan Marchment.
Texas features ex-Pack Mike Paliotta (Westport/Choate Prep). He started the season in Toronto before being traded to Texas on January 11th. In addition, Texas has two ex-Sound Tigers in Colin Markison, and Matt Mangene. Brian Flynn (Pomfret Prep) was with Montreal last season on the roster and their GM is former New Haven Senator, Scott White.
A series of AHL head coaches have gotten NHL coaching gigs in the past week.
Todd Nelson goes from Grand Rapids to Dallas as an assistant coach. Mike Van Ryan goes from Tucson to the St. Louis Blues to be a new assistant coach and the latest, Ryan Huska, goes from Stockton to Calgary as an assistant coach.
AHL President and CEO Dave Andrews, completing his 24th year at the helm, has been given a contract extension until 2020 by the AHL Board of Governors. Andrews is the second longest serving head of the AHL in its 82 years. The late Jack Butterfield served the longest at 28 years.
ECHL KELLY CUP FINAL
The Colorado Eagles are ahead two games to one over the Florida Everblades winning game with 5-4 OT win.
Ryan Olsen scored the last two goals for the Eagles including the game winner at 7:18 of overtime. Ex-Pack Michael Joly scored his tenth of the post season for the Eagles first goal.
The two teams played games four and five in Florida this weekend in Estero,Florida.
Florida won Game 2 with a 4-3 overtime win.
Florida’s Mitch Heard scored with 36 seconds left in the first overtime for their first win.
The new ECHL team in St. John’s is ditching the name of the city as part of the team name. They will be going with the Newfoundland Growlers honoring the dog breed from the region.
The Growlers and the Maine (Portland) Mariners, the Rangers new Double AA affiliate of the Wolf Pack start play in the fall.
The ECHL have seen affiliations renewed for four teams including Worcester with the Islanders, Adirondack with New Jersey, Tulsa with St. Louis, and Wichita with Edmonton. Newfoundland has not announced their affiliation, however it’s expected to be either Montreal or Toronto.
The league announced they will have a new Commissioner voting in Ryan Crelin to replace Brian McKenna in the fall.
MEMORIAL CUP FINAL
Congrats to the Acadie-Bathurst (New Brunswick) Titan in shutting out the Regina Pats 3-0 to capture the 100th Memorial Cup title.
Goalie Evan Fitzpatrick after having little work in the first two periods was sharp in the third to engineer the shutout of the host team.
The Titan (pronounced tee-ton) Liam Murphy (Killingworth, CT) a Hartford Junior Wolf Pack alumni, helped with timely goal scoring in the series. The team’s GM is former New Haven Nighthawk, Sylvain Couturier.
The Pats are coached by former Wolf Pack head coach from their Calder Cup year John Paddock, who had a great post game comment, “We needed two pucks tonight because they had the other one for most of the game.”
Paddock’s 17 year old nephew Max put on a fantastic goaltending performance with 41 saves. The teams top player, Sam Steel, an Anaheim first round pick, was voted tourney MVP.
Regina also had on its roster Jansen Harkins, the son of former Whaler Todd Harkins and Jake Leshychyn, the son of former Whaler, Curtis Leshychyn.
The Canadian Hockey League, the governing body of Canadian major junior hockey, released its award winners. The CHL Coach of the Year is ex-Pack, Drew Bannister, of the OHL Salt Ste. Marie Greyhounds.
Leftover from WHL Bantam Draft is another son of an ex-Hartford Whaler, Ridly Greig, the son of Mark Greig, an amateur scout for the Flyers.
The annual QMJHL Draft in Shawinigan, Quebec on Saturday produced the lowest number of New Englanders ever selected over the 14 rounds. Just three were selected from Connecticut all of whom came from the Selects Academy program at South Kent Prep.
The highly regarded Josh Lawrence from Fredericton was taken in the first round, fifteenth overall by Saint John. At, age 16, has already given a verbal commit to BU for 2020-21, but if he continues to progress and is NHL Draft eligible, it will be interesting which direction he goes.
Charles Desrochers went in the second round, 32nd overall to the Saint John Sea Dogs. Then Ethan Phillips was taken by the Halifax Mooseheads in the 13th round, 232nd overall.
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