CANTLON: HOCKEY NEWS AND NOTES 

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – While in our safe places under a pandemically-induced house arrest, there is some limited hockey news still going on.

XL CENTER

The XL Center, despite being shut down, progress on the facility’s brand spanking new chiller project has officially begun.

According to Michael W. Freimuth, the Executive Director of the CRDA (Capital Regional Development Corporation), a construction management contract was awarded to Hartford’s Consigli Construction Co., Inc.

“Consigli has bid out the chiller package to two qualified bidders who have completed NHL chillers in the past – Cimeco & Ice Builders – those bids are currently under review. The remaining bid packages are going out today and the bid packages are due on April 15th.”

The project schedule indicates mobilization to begin in May and is set for completion by September 2020 in time for the start for both of the 2020-21 college hockey and AHL Wolf Pack regular seasons.

NHL DRAFT

Sadly, another victim to the COVID-19 virus that initially began in Wuhan, China is the summer NHL Draft spectacular that was slated to be held in Montreal on June 26-27.

The NHL combines, NHL Awards Show in Las Vegas and the NHL Draft were all shut down.

It looks like the NHL Draft will be held remotely at the NHL offices and will likely occur with a video hookup with all 31 teams. It will be handled with NBCSN and TSN who were going to broadcast Day 1 and TSN Day two.

That is unless conditions dramatically change in the next three months in the US, Canada, and Europe and that doesn’t seem very likely.

PRO SIGNINGS

Ex-Bridgeport Sound Tiger, Matt Donovan, has re-signed with the Milwaukee Admirals for the 2021-22 AHL season. The team also signed ex-Pack captain, Cole Schneider (UCONN), to a new AHL, one-year deal for next season.

Meanwhile, in Sweden, 2019 second-round draft pick of the Rangers center Karl Henriksson signs a deal with Frolunda HC (Sweden-SHL) and is eligible to play for Sweden 2021 WJC Team.

This season just concluded, he played a majority of his games with Frolunda HC J-20 team in the Super Elite League, got in eight SHL games and was loaned out to Sodertalje SK in Allsvenskan League and skated for the 2020 Sweden WJC Team.

-Ex-Pack Nick Latta signs with EHC Straubing (Germany-DEL) for next season after three seasons with EHC Wolfsburg.

While ex-Pack Steven Moses goes from Jokerit Helsinki (Finland-KHL) to SC Rapperswil-Jona (Switzerland-LNA).

-Greg Ireland, former AHL head coach with Grand Rapids and San Antonio was named Italian Nation team coach replacing Clayton Beddoes who he replaced with HC Bolzano (Italy-EBEL) mid-season.

Beddoes had a solid college career with Lake Superior State in their heyday in the early 1990s and played for several years with Providence before heading over to Europe.

COLLEGE HOCKEY

The player signing numbers have picked up over the past week with several each day.

The Wolf Pack latest signing was skating not far from the XL Center.

Alex Whelan, a 6-0, 210-pound native of Ramsey, NJ, played four seasons at Quinnipiac University (ECACHL), including 13 goals,11 assists and a 24-point performance in 29 games this year as a senior for the Bobcats.

Whelan, 22, an assistant captain led the Bobcat squad in plus/minus, with a plus 16, and finished second on the team in goals and third in points.

He notched his second collegiate hat trick January 17th, in a 4-3 win at Holy Cross, and had a college career-best six-game point-scoring streak (4-3-7) from November 30 through January 10.

In 141 career games with Quinnipiac, Whelan totaled 48 goals and 30 assists for 78 points, along with 38 penalty minutes.  He led the Bobcats in goals his sophomore season, 2017-18, with 16 in 38 games, and twice topped Quinnipiac skaters in shots-on-goal, with 175 in 2017-18 and 152 in 2018-19 his junior season.

Whelan also earned ECACHL All-Academic Team honors for three straight years, from 2016-17 through 2018-19.

– The latest signing came late Friday afternoon as freshmen Trevor Zegras (Avon Old Farms) left Boston University after one year and signed a standard three-year two-way entry-level contract.

Joining him in SoCal in a rare Ivy League early exit is forward Jack Badini (Old Greenwich/CT Oilers-EHL) from Harvard to the Ducks.

Hobey Baker candidate, Jason Cotton of Sacred Heart University (AHA) and his brother David of Boston College (HE) both signed with the Carolina Hurricanes. Jason signed a one-year free-agent deal and David, a two-year entry-level deal earlier in the week.

Mattias Samuelsson, son of former New Haven Nighthawk and one time Ranger Kjell Samuelsson, has left Western Michigan (NCHC) for the Buffalo Sabres on a standard three year, two-way entry-level deal.

Several Notre Dame (Big 10) players have signed deals like Callahan Burke (Colorado-AHL) and Colton Poolman (Calgary-NHL).

The top school with the most signees is the Western Michigan Broncos (NCHC) with six, including the recently inked Rangers forward Austin Rueschhoff at 6’7 and 230 lbs. departing a year early on a two year, two-way entry-level deal.

The other school with five signees is the Ferris State Bulldogs (WCHA), then with four are the University Vermont Catamounts (HE) and Michigan St. Spartans (Big 10) led by Patrick Khorodorenko who played one game with the Wolf Pack after signing before the season was suspended.

In total, 58 Division I players have signed and 68 in total have signed pro deals so far. The Big 10 conference has 15 players, Hockey East has 14 signees and the WCHA and NCHC each have 10.

Just one player has signed in Europe, in Teemu Pulkinnen Nebraska-Omaha (NCHC) with Jukerit (Finland-FEL) and there is just one grad transfer in Sean Dhooggee from University Wisconsin Badgers (Big 10) to Arizona State Sun Devils (NCAA Division-1 Independent).

-Ryan Donald, an assistant coach with Yale University (ECACHL) has left to become head coach/GM of the expansion Cranbrook Bucks (BCHL) signing a four-year deal. He has been an assistant to head coach Keith Allain since 2014-15 and played four years for Yale.

-The 10 finalists for the Mike Richter Award for the top college hockey goalie were announced including Spencer Knight (Darien/Avon Old Farms) of BC, unsigned Rangers draft pick senior Tyler Wall UMASS-Lowell (HE) and Jeremy Swayman, Maine (HE) who recently signed with the Boston Bruins.

-The NCAA Division I/IIII Player of the Year is Norwich University Cadets (Northfield, VT) goalie Tom Aubruen (Chamonix, France). He finished with a 23-2-2 record and an obscene 0.77 GAA and a .967 save percentage in gaining, the Sid Watson Award.

He was no academic slouch either with a 3.77 GPA in business management.

His career playing numbers 65 games, a record of 50-8-5 and a .946 save percentage. He should get a training camp deal from some team in the NHL, AHL or ECHL.

JUNIORS

Very sadly, the Canadian Hockey League, the governing body for all three Canadian junior hockey leagues the OHL, QMJHL, and WHL formally canceled the playoffs and the 101st edition of the Memorial Cup, one of the great hockey treats in late spring.

-The WHL has set its Bantam Draft for April 22nd and completed its first-ever US Prospects Draft on Wednesday, a two-round 44 player process of selecting prospects from the Western US.

The only name of local interest is Riley Bassen, son of former NY Islander and Springfield Indian Bob Bassen, the current Director of Alumni Relations for the Dallas Stars who resides in Frisco, Texas.  

EUROPE

The KHL became the last hockey league to shut down as they canceled the rest of the Gagarin Cup playoffs at the quarterfinal round.

This was necessary after two teams from outside Russia, Barys Nur-Sultan in Kazakhstan and Jokerit Helsinki in Finland, because of their governmental restrictions they couldn’t host playoff games and travel restrictions prevented them from leaving their country.

-The NHL announced this week that KHL free agents cannot be signed by NHL clubs till after May 1st.

-One of two leagues to finish its tournament and crown a new champion was Turkey.

The seven-team short season Turkish Super League (TSL) saw Buz Beykov SK of Istanbul end the five year run of Zeytinburnu SK as champion with a 4-2 championship-clinching win.

Serkan Gumus, the first Turkish born non-import to win the scoring title tallied all four goals in the victory for Beykov.

The Telford Tigers of the English Tier two National Ice Hockey League (NIHL) defeated the Peterborough Phantoms 8-3 to win the title with Brandon Whistle, nephew of former New Haven Nighthawk, Rob Whistle scoring a hat trick in the National Cup victory.

In Serbia, they played just one game before the finals were canceled as Crvena Zvezda (Belgrade) won 4-2 over Vojvodina.

-The Southern Hemisphere hockey season set to begin next month has been paused as well.

The AIHL (Australian Ice Hockey League) has delayed the opening of its 30-game 2020 season that was slated to begin on April 18th.

Neighboring nation New Zealand is still ready for its short season 16 game per team (five teams) NZIHL schedule and is holding firm on a May 15th start date, but are monitoring developments like the rest of the planet.

The Southern Hemisphere is now entering its winter season and the possibility of a COVID-19 outbreak is expected from South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia.

-The IIHF has canceled the Worlds Championships scheduled to be held next month in Davos, Switzerland (Belarus, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Norway, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, United States) and all the other world championships tournaments as well.

Division I: Group A in Ljubljana, Slovenia (Austria, France, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, and South Korea), Division I Group B to be held in Katowice, Poland (Estonia, Japan, Lithuania, Poland, Serbia, and Ukraine ).

Division II: Group A in Zagreb, Croatia (Australia, China, Croatia, Israel, Netherlands, and Spain) and Division II Group B in Reykyavik, Iceland (Belgium, Bulgaria,  Georgia, Iceland, Mexico, and New Zealand).

Division III: Group A set for Kockelscheuer, Luxembourg (Luxembourg, North Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and United Arab Emirates-UAE). Then Division III Group B in Cape Town, South Africa (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hong Kong, South Africa, and Thailand)

Lastly, Division IV in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia and the Philippines) all were canceled.