CANTLON: HOCKEY OFF-SEASON NEWS & NOTES VOL 29 

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – The Tampa Bay Lightning won their second Stanley Cup in tema history this past week with three Connecticut connections earning Championship rings.

In 2010, Ryan McDonagh played half of a season with the Connecticut Whale before being promoted to New York to join the Rangers. He would spend 7-1/2 years in the Big Apple before being traded to Tampa Bay along with J.T. Miller, another CT Whale/Hartford Wolf Pack alum, two-and-a-half years ago.

McDonagh was originally a first round pick (12th overall) by the Montreal Canadiens and was a part of deal that sent Scott Gomez over the border when Pierre Gauthier, then the head of Montreal’s Player Development side, told, the now soon-to-be-retiring, Rangers Director of Pro Scouting, Gordie Clark, that McDonagh, ”Wouldn’t amount to anything.”

As time has shown, that was wildly wrong. Clark said he couldn’t call, then Rangers GM, Glen Sather, fast enough to make the deal.

Also getting a ring is Greenwich-born, and former Brunswick Bruins school grad, Kevin Shattenkirk. While in New York, he never lived up to the expectations that led to his free agent signing. He was brought out after two years of the deal and was given a contract and a second chance by Tampa Bay.

The off-ice champion is the Director of Hockey Administration for the Lightning, Liz Sylvia-Koharski, who got her start with the AHL’s Beast of New Haven and worked in the AHL’s league office for six years.

PLAYER MOVEMENT

Jordan Murray of the Belleville Senators is loaned to Dynamo Riga (Latvia-KHL).

Ex-Pack, Adam Cracknell, who signed an offseason, one-year, two-way deal with the Edmonton Oilers, is loaned out from the Bakersfield Condors to Esbjerg Energy (Norway-NEL).

After a missing a whole season because of a torn ACL, Juuso Valimaki is loaned by the Calgary Flames via the Stockton Heat to Ilves Tampere (Finland-FEL).

Rockford IceHog, Brandon Hagel, is loaned to HC Thurgau (Switzerland-LNB).

Mikhail Maltsev of the Binghamton Devils, Yakov Trenin of the Milwaukee Admirals, and prospect Dmitri Zavgorny, of the Calgary Flames, who was originally ticketed for Stockton, have all been loaned by their respective organization to SKA St. Petersburg (Russia-KHL).

Bobby Nardella, of the Hershey Bears, is sent to Djurgardens IF (Sweden-SHL) on a full season loan.

Ryan Olson of the San Antonio Rampage is loaned to the EC Kassel Huskies (Germany DEL-2). His teammate, Alexei Toropchenko, is being loaned to Kunlun (China-KHL) that is playing at the City of Mystichi just outside of Moscow for the 2020-21 season. His father played two pro seasons in North America, the first was with the Springfield Indians. The St. Louis Blues are the new affiliate of the Springfield Thunderbirds.

Antti Suomela is loaned by the San Jose Sharks to HIFK Helsinki (Finland-FEL).

Nick Wolff, who signed with the Boston Bruins and played in Providence in the American League following a career at the University of Minnesota-Duluth (NCHC), is loaned out to DVTK (Slovakia-SLEL).

Two more loans to SC Langnau (Switzerland-LNA). Erik Brunnström departs Belleville, and Joachim Blichfeld leaves the San Jose Barracuda.

155 AHL’ers have been loaned or signed in Europe.

Ex-Pack defenseman, Bobby Sanguinetti, and EHC Munich (Germany-DEL) have mutually agreed to end the last year of his contract.

Dominic Turgeon, of the Grand Rapids Griffins, and the nephew of former Hartford Whaler, Sylvain Turgeon, signs a one-year, two-way contract extension paying $750K if he plays in the NHL and $115K in the AHL.

David Drake, the former UCONN defenseman, signs a one-year deal with the Reading Royals (ECHL) for his third pro season.

Ryan Warsofsky (Sacred Heart University) departs the Charlotte Checkers and is heading to Chicago to be the new head coach of the Chicago Wolves, the top affiliate of the Carolina Hurricanes. Geordie Kinnear will be behind the Charlotte bench this year as Florida starts a new affiliation with the Checkers.

Former AHL goalie, Richard Bachman, has retired and has been named the goalie coach for the Iowa Wild.

COLLEGE

The Connecticut Ice Festival sponsor, the regional cable network SNY, has canceled the event. It was scheduled for January 30-31, but has been pushed off to the 2022 and 2023 seasons. The tournament, which features all four, Division I Connecticut college teams, and which the inaugural tournament winner was the Sacred Heart University Pioneers (AHA), from the ECACHL Quinnipiac University and Yale University plus the Hockey East UCONN Huskies.

A new college hockey rumor via a reliable source has the ECACHL discussing splitting the league into an Empire and New England divisions, just chatting.

Griffin Luce (Salisbury School) graduates from the University of Michigan (Big 10) and signs with the Rapid City Rush (ECHL). Luce’s grandfather is a former NHL player from the 1970s, Don Luce, who has a 12 game “cup-of-Coffee” with the Rangers for 12 games before enjoying a solid, ten-year span with the Buffalo Sabres. He, Craig Ramsay, and Danny Gare, were the first real checking line. They complemented the great, “French Connection” line and went to the 1975 Stanley Cup Final. Luce had a long post playing career as the Director of Player Development for 13 years with the Philadelphia Flyers, then four more as Pro Scout and his last season with Toronto as a pro scout before retiring. His great uncle, Mike Boland, had a long AHL career with the Rochester Americans and Hershey.

Colin Saccoman, of Lake Superior State (WCHA) signs, with Rapid City (ECHL).

The Poehling twins, Nick and Jack graduate from St. Cloud State (NCHC) and sign with the Ontario Reign. They will likely be assigned to the German team, Eisbaeren Berlin, which is owned by the LA Kings and its parent company SMG (formerly AEG) under its umbrella. The pair are both the younger brothers of Montreal’s Ryan Poehling, who split last year between the Laval Rocket and Les Habs.

Jackson Cressey of Princeton (ECACHL) signs with the Reading Royals (ECHL).

Goalie, Devin Cooley, leaves the University of Denver (NCHC) after his junior season and signs a standard two-year, two-way, entry-level deal ($925K-NHL/$70K-AHL) with the Nashville Predators and will likely be in Milwaukee whenever the AHL season starts.

Sean Giles departs from Robert Morris University (AHA) and signs with the Cincinnati Cyclones (ECHL).

Dante Hahn od Concordia (WI) College (WIAC) heads to Pyry (Finland Division-I), Kurt Sonne Northland College (NCHA) is off to Courchevel-Meribel-Pralognan (France Division-2) and Lucas Smith of Post University of Waterbury (Northeast-10) has signed with EHC Basel (Switzerland-LNB).

Hockey East has 35 players to have signed North American pro deals, tops in the country. The other conferences totals are NCHC has 30, the WCHA has 27, the Big 10 has 26, the ECACHL has 25, the AHA 20 and Division I independent Arizona State has four.

38 underclassmen who have left school early.

168 Division I and III players have signed North American pro deals. 296 is the number of college players to sign pro deals in the US. 77 players have signed now for Europe.

The NCAA Division III Championships Committee earlier this week proposed selection dates and bracket sizes for the 2021 NCAA winter championships, which include men’s and women’s hockey. It’s likely a trial balloon for Division I whose weighing an option in the hope that season will start after the New Year. All recommendations will move forward through their relative committees and oversee the final draft to be recommended and voted on, where they must be supported by the NCAA Division III Management Council in a scheduled meeting on October 19-20.

For men’s hockey, the selection announcement date and automatic qualification deadline is proposed to be March 14 with a nine-team bracket, down from its usual 12.

For women’s hockey, same deadline, but a bracket size of eight teams instead of 10 is proposed.

RANGERS NHL DRAFT

Tuesday night, the NHL will hold its virtual Entry Draft on Tuesday and Wednesday, when they will select rounds two through seven.

The Rangers have two first round picks. The number one overall will likely take Alexis Lafreniere of Rimouski (QMJHL). They will select again in the 22nd spot. The Blueshirts have no second round pick after trading it last week to the Detroit Red WIngs as part of the Marc Staal deal.

In the third round, the Rangers have picks at 72nd and 92nd (from Dallas) overall.

The 103rd overall pick will be selected by the Rangers in the fourth round. In the fifth round, the team will select 134th. In the sixth round, they will make their pick at 165th spot. In the seventh and final round, the team has three picks with back-to-back choices at the 196th and 197th positions from Nashville and their 206th pick will be from the Vancouver Canucks.

The Rangers announced they have brought out the last year of the contract of goalie Henrik Lundqvist who was a Wolf Pack…for one day. He came to Cromwell on an unannounced conditioning stint and brought the team lunch, then headed back to New York. He did practice in a Wolf Pack jersey.

Lundqvist’s departure sets the franchise’s goaltending for New York and Hartford.

Former Wolf Pack players Alexander Georgiev and Igor Shesterkin will be manning the nets in New York.

Adam Huska (UCONN), entering his second pro season, and rookie Tyler Wall from UMASS-Lowell, after an outstanding senior season, will compete for the starting position in Hartford.

GENERAL HOCKEY NEWS

The de-Whaler-ification of the Carolina Hurricanes is now complete with the announced retirement of the longest serving continuous employee in the franchise’s history dating back to 1972.

After 48 years, Equipment Manager, Skip Cunningham, will no longer be behind the bench working diligently tending to the various equipment needs of players. He started with the WHA New England Whalers and the announcement comes a week after the passing of Jack Kelley, the first head coach and GM in franchise’s history.

Cunningham was at both Boston buildings, the Boston Arena (nee Matthews Arena), the original Boston Garden, the Springfield Exposition Center (the Big E), the Hartford Civic Center, Greensboro Coliseum and the PNC Arena.

In the last three years, the Hurricanes have swept aside their first GM, Ron Francis, who is now Seattle’s first GM. The radio voice of Chuck Kaiton, and recently the TV voice, John Forslund, and now Cunningham. Read about it HERE.

In a side note, the Hurricanes signed a five-year extension with the PNC Bank Arena that will keep the team there with an out-clause in year four, effectively ending the rumors of the team moving to either to Quebec City or Houston.

The current Executive VP/GM of Operations for the building is the last Hartford connection as Pennsylvania native, Davin (Dave) Olson, who was the GM for Hartford Civic Center under Ogden Corporation.

Olson was also the GM for the New Haven Coliseum in the 1980s until the early-1990s. He then headed to Hartford and went with the Whalers to Carolina.

He studied in Danbury’s Western Connecticut State University and when he was living in CT he was a resident of West Haven.

USA hockey has invited 39 players to the initial World Junior Championship evaluation camp.

The only two players with direct CT connections. The first is Darien-native goalie, Spencer Knight, a Boston College (HE) sophomore and Florida Panther first round pick.

Jake Sanderson, the son of former Whaler, Geoff Sanderson, who’s likely to be drafted early in the first round next week. He will be an invitee.

Brett Berard has an indirect link. He is the son of one-time, UCONN assistant coach (AHA years), Dave Berard, who is currently the head boss at Holy Cross (AHA) is also an invitee.

The only other CT connected individual is assistant coach Ted Donato (Harvard ECACHL), who was an ex-Wolf Pack and Bridgeport Sound Tiger.

The QMJHL has adopted another anti-fighting penalty increase taking fighting from five to fifteen minutes and suspensions. Players were not consulted on these rule changes. Read about it HERE.

CONDOLENCES

This writer and Howlings extend our deepest condolences to the Connecticut Whale’s former VP of Operations, and long-time Hartford Whalers employee, Mark Willand on the passing of his mother, Marjorie, who passed away at the age of 93 last week in Worcester, MA.