BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – There’s news all over the hockey landscape as the date to restart the season is rapidly approaching. The news begins all over the planet and affects both the Hartford Wolf Pack and the New York Rangers.
LIAS ANDERSSON
The Lias Andersson saga has likely taken its final turn.
The Rangers previously loaned the forward to his old Swedish team HV71 for the remainder of the last season.
According to the New York Post’s Larry Brooks, the team made an offer to Andersson to attend its playoff training camp on July 10th at a yet unspecified arena, likely in the hub city of Las Vegas, to prepare for their play-in playoff round against the Carolina Hurricanes.
Andersson declined, making it unlikely that he will wear a Rangers or Wolf Pack jersey again.
The situation surrounding Andersson is similar to what the Rangers dealt with early last season with Vitali Kravtsov when he returned to Russia after five lackluster games. He left on October 28th but decided to come back and returned on December 13th.
Clearly, the situations are similar but also very different. The one thing they do have in common is that both players were high first-round draft picks.
Previously, Andersson played three seasons in HV71 and earned a gold medal in 2017.
Andersson, requested a trade back on December 19th after the team returned home from a road trip to Charlotte, North Carolina. Once he left though, he was suspended by the Rangers.
Andersson had been sent down to Hartford on November 17th. He played just thirteen games while missing one due to injury. He amassed just four goals and five points. Three of those points came in one game against Binghamton on December 7th. That meant he had just two points over the other 12 games and was scoreless in his last six with the Wolf Pack.
Andersson played just 74 games in Hartford registering 15 goals and 24 assists (39 points) over three seasons. With the Rangers, he played just 66 games with a mere three goals and nine points.
In his last game with the Rangers in November against the Florida Panthers, Andersson played a remarkably low 3:43 as opposed to his career-best ice time which was 16:09. In the past two years in Hartford, Andersson has put together only four multiple-point games, prior to the game against the Binghamton Devils. His last one came against the Providence Bruins last season before being recalled to New York where he managed just six points in 42 games.
A natural center, Andersson played wing at times in New York, but when he was reassigned to Hartford, he was used strictly as a center.
His last game in Charlotte against the Checkers was bad. He posted an ugly minus-3 with just one shot on goal. In Andersson’s defense, the entire team played poorly in both games. Andersson flew back with the team from North Carolina that Thursday and that Friday morning made his decision.
Andersson’s agent called the Rangers and informed them of the trade request and nothing has changed since then.
AHL RETURNS TO PLAY
To nobody’s surprise, the AHL announced it has formed an AHL Return-To-Play Task Force to deal with the many varied issues regarding starting the 2020-21 AHL season.
What was a surprise was that it’s being headed by outgoing Commissioner, President, and CEO of the AHL, Dave Andrews as well as five prominent NHL GMs.
The committee consists of:
- David Andrews, Chairman
- Mark Chipman – Chairman and Governor, Winnipeg Jets
- Kyle Dubas – General Manager, Toronto Maple Leafs
- Ken Holland – General Manager and President of Hockey Operations, Edmonton Oilers
- David Poile – General Manager and President of Hockey Operations, Nashville Predators
- Don Sweeney – General Manager, Boston Bruins
- Steve Yzerman – Executive Vice President and General Manager, Detroit Red Wings
- Jeff Barrett – Chief Executive Officer, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins
- Tera Black – Chief Operating Officer, Charlotte Checkers
- Jim Brooks – Co-Owner, Lehigh Valley Phantoms
- Todd Frederickson – President, Iowa Wild
- Mike Ostrowski – President and Chief Operating Officer, Cleveland Monsters
- Matt Savant – President, Business Operations, San Diego Gulls
COVID 19 – NASSAU COLISEUM
The first US arena casualty from the pandemic is the Nassau Coliseum. Read about that HERE.
PALM SPRINGS
The AHL Return-To-Play Task Force has many problems to deal with especially with the Pacific Division, but there may be no more serious problem than with the burgeoning issue at play with its expected and granted 32nd AHL team in Palm Beach,
Given the economic climate calamity spawned by the pandemic, it seems as if capital funding may have dried up for the time being for the Agua Caliente Tribe, which is part of a conglomeration of businesses involved to begin construction on the brand new arena.
Read a superb piece by Amanda Wagner of The Desert Sun newspaper in Palm Springs HERE.
SEATTLE
Sadly, the pandemic is hitting the NHL’s 32nd franchise very hard. There is still not a team name, or colors, or a season ticket campaign, and there is no seating selection going on now that the arena opening date has been pushed back.
This could adversely their hopes to host the NHL expansion and amateur draft next summer. Read about that HERE.
SEATTLE ARENA
Speaking of the Seattle team, there are lots of things to be worked out with the arena. Read about that stuff HERE.
HOCKEY HALL OF FAME
The NHL Hockey Hall of Fame announced it will announce its Class of 2020 on June 24th at 4:30 PM.
For the first time in the Hall’s 77 year history, the Inductee announcement will be done virtually as opposed to being in-person in Toronto for the 18 members who sit on the committee.
They will be done via a private secure on-line portal as all ballots are secret.
Elections will be held in order, starting with the Males, then the female players, and that will be followed by referee/linesman and finally, the Builder category.
The number of selections that can be included in one class consists of four male players, two female players, plus two builders – or one builder and one referee/linesman.
In some instances, there have been a series of three or four run-offs necessary to determine the honorees.
Any candidate who receives at least 75% of the vote (14 of the 18 votes), will be then considered elected to the HHOF.
PLAYER MOVEMENT AND HOCKEY NEWS
Reid Boucher is the next AHL’er to head to Europe.
The Utica Observer-Dispatch reports that he is close to a deal with Avangard Omsk (Russia-KHL).
Two other players had their European deals formally announced. Oliwer Kaski goes from Charlotte/Grand Rapids to signing with Avangard and Boucher’s Comets teammate, Nikolai Goldobin, has sealed his deal with CSKA Moscow (Russia-KHL) making 31 AHL players to have signed In Europe with 18 of of the 31 teams to have lost at least one player in the off-season to Europe.
The NCAA’s brand new, independent Division I team, the Long Island University Sharks, have almost completed their first roster with commits from RPI (ECACHL) transfer Matt Harris, of Garrett Worth, Minnesota (NAHL), and Jack Quinn, Kenai River (NAHL).
Alabama-Huntsville (WCHA) is reconstructing their team with Noah Finstrom from Jamestown Rebels (NAHL) and Quinn Green from the Kansas City Scouts (NAHL) (nee Topeka Pilots).
The Team Canada 2021 WJC Team was named last week with the initial 41 selections to participate in its virtual camp at the end of July. The list includes Rangers second-round pick, Matt Robertson, (Edmonton Oil Kings) who is expected to be in Hartford training camp this season whenever that will be held.
There are two other familiar names on the Canadian roster. Jack Finley is the eldest son of former Wolf Pack and Ranger, Jeff Finley, who is now the Director of Amateur Scouting for the Winnipeg Jets.
Ridley Greig is the other. He is the son of ex-Whaler, and Springfield Indians’ player, Mark Greig.
The WJC tournament is to be held on Red Deer and Edmonton, Alberts December 26th to January 5th.
The CCHA conference that will start in 2021-22 and named their first commissioner, Don Lucia.
Lucia, 61, will have the task of shepherding in the new seven-team conference as part of a college hockey realignment.
The seven schools are; Bemidji State, Bowling Green University, Ferris State, Lake Superior State, Minnesota State-Mankato, Michigan Tech, and Northern Michigan. All of the schools will play their last season in the WCHA this season, leaving the University of Alaska-Anchorage, University of Alaska-Fairbanks, and the recently revived University Alabama-Huntsville, as the three conference members to be left behind.
Outgoing Alabama-Huntsville head coach, Scott Corbett, indicated the school might move to the CCHA next year to be the eighth team as it’s geographic location makes practical travel sense. This will leave the WCHA to be re-branded as a true all Western US state’s college hockey conference in the near future.
Lucia’s resume spans over 31 years as a top-notch college coach. His record is 736-403-102 (.634 winning percentage).
He spent 19 years with the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers where he won back-to-back NCAA titles in 2002-2003 and retired as the school’s all-time winningest coach.
He coached the 2014 US WJC team.
Lucia started his career as an assistant coach with the University Alaska-Fairbanks Nannooks in their last season in Division III. He was with the program as an assistant for the first four years of his tenure there and then spent the following six years as the team’s head coach.
He was also the head coach for two years at the University of Alaska-Anchorage Seawolves before going on to be the head at Colorado College Tigers (WCHA) for six years.
Lucia graduated from Notre Dame University and was drafted in the tenth-round (167th overall) by the Philadelphia Flyers in the 1978 NHL Draft, but he never played professionally.
His son, Mario, played last year in Denmark (Rungstad IK). His other son, Tony, played last season with the Gwinett Gladiators (ECHL), and his nephew, Gino, split last season with Minnesota (NAHL), Lone Star (NAHL), and Winkler (MJHL).
Ex-Bridgeport Sound Tiger, Sebastien Collberg, has left EC Graz (Austria-EBEL) for Lowen Frankfurt (Germany-DEL-2)
Former Ranger and Wolf Pack, Wojtech Wolski, switched teams in the Czech Republic going from HC Ocelari Trinec to HC Dynamo Pardubice (Czech Republic-CEL).
