CANTLON: HOCKEY BUSINESS ACTIVITY PICKING UP 

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – As the ’20-’21 hockey season officially comes to a close with the Tampa Bay Lightning repeating as Stanley Cup Champions, hockey news now begins in earnest.

Ex-Hartford Wolf Pack captain Cole Schneider signed a one-year AHL contract with the Milwaukee Admirals. The Admirals didn’t play last season because of COVID. Schneider played last season with the Texas Stars and skated for the Admirals in 2019-20.

The New York Rangers gave long-time goalie coach Benoit Allaire a title promotion. Allaire’s new title is Director of Goaltending.

FILATRAULT NEW CONSULTANT

Allaire hired a new goaltending consultant, Jean-Ian Filatrault, who’s been a goalie coach since 2010 in the AHL with the Toronto Marlies, Cleveland Monsters, San Antonio Rampage, and the Colorado Eagles. During his playing career, Filatrault was mainly in the second edition of the Central Hockey League with the very successful Oklahoma City Blazers, Macon Whoopee, San Angelo (TX) Outlaws, and the Border City (Texarkana, TX) Bruins. He also had stops in the ECHL with the Jacksonville Lizard Kings and Dayton Gems and one in WCHL with the Tacoma (WA) Sabercats. He played three years in France with HC Anglet in the French Elite Magnus League.

Jeff Malcolm (Yale University) has been elevated to being goalie coach in Hartford. Hiring Malcolm means that Eric Raymond was not retained.

Jack Drury, the son of ex-Hartford Whaler Ted Drury and the nephew of Rangers’ President and New York and Hartford General Manager, Chris Drury, signed his NHL three-year Entry-Level Contract with the Carolina Hurricanes ($925K-NHL/$70K-AHL).

Last season, Drury skated with the Växjö Lakers HC (Sweden-SHL), who won the LeMat Trophy championship and won the Bronze medal playing for Team USA at the World Championships Latvia where his uncle Chris is the team’s General Manager.

Carolina’s AHL farm team is in his hometown, the Chicago Wolves.

MORE MOVES

Patrick Grasso, the nephew of former New Haven Nighthawk, Tom Mullen, signs a one-year AHL deal with the Utica Comets.

Former UCONN Husky, Joe Masonius, and Jordan Kaplan (Salisbury School), a Sacred Heart University (AHA) transfer to the University of Vermont, both inked one-year deals with the Comets, and both players hail from the Garden State. Masonius from Spring Lake and Kaplan from Bridgewater.

Boston announced they had signed Providence forwards Cameron Hughes and Joona Koppanen each to one-year, two-way (NHL-AHL) deals.

Jay Varady is returned by the Arizona Coyotes to the Tucson Roadrunners to return as their head coach and signed a new three-year deal.

The ECHL expansion Trois-Rivieres Lions announced their first four-player signees, all with Quebec pedigrees from their area, including ex-Bridgeport Sound Tiger and Springfield Falcons Mathieu Gagnon.

BOUCHARD NOW IN SAN DIEGO

The Anaheim Ducks have named ex-Wolf Pack/Sound Tiger Joël Bouchard as the San Diego Gulls head coach after relieving ex-Hartford Whaler Kevin Dineen.

Bouchard, 47, spent the past three seasons as head coach of the Laval Rocket. He guided them to a record of 83-67-14-10, including a Canadian Division title in 2020-21.

Bouchard spent seven seasons from 2011-18 as general manager of the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL), while also serving as head coach from 2014-18.

In 272 games behind the Armada bench, he posted a 160-80-32 record, including consecutive QMJHL President Cup Finals appearances in 2017 and 2018. He also served as an assistant coach with the Montreal Juniors of the QMJHL from 2008-11 before the franchise was relocated to Blainville-Boisbriand in 2011, located about a half-hour from Montreal.

Bouchard also has international experience as the general manager of the Canadian National Junior Team for two years, assembling a roster that won a gold medal at the 2018 World Junior Championship and silver in the 2017 tournament.

ABBOTSFORD NEWS

The Abbotsford newest entry in the AHL has pushed back, unveiling its new name and team colors.

A scheduled Friday press conference was postponed until Wednesday, July 14th. The team is expected to become the seventh AHL team to share their parent team’s nickname – the Abbotsford Canucks – to put on their hockey birth certificate. The other teams who share their NHL team’s name are; Providence, Bridgeport, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Texas, Belleville, and Iowa.

The city is located forty minutes east of downtown Vancouver. The name was registered back on May 5th, according to abbynews.com. The team also registered a domain name, Facebook page, Twitter account and created a Tik Tok page named @abbycanucks on May 5th, the day of the team’s announcement moving the team from Utica.

The Fraser Valley Canucks was a trademark by a group in Iceland, but none of the other eight names offered as possible team names searching multiple websites that track trademarked names were registered.

This will be the second go-round for the AHL in Abbotsford. The first edition ended with a spectacular flameout to the tune of a $5 million payout to the Calgary Flames to exit halfway thru a 10-year deal.

MORE PLAYER MOVEMENT

Ex-CT Whale, Kelsey Tessier, leaves EC Bad Nauheim (Germany DEL-2) to skate next season with HC Rouen Dragons (France-FREL), who play in the 12-team Elite Magnus League.

Strauss Mann (Greenwich/Brunswick School) leaves Michigan (Big 10) and signs with Skelleftea AIK (Sweden-SHL).

Jeff Baum graduates from AIC (AHA) in Springfield and signs with the Belfast Giants (Northern Ireland). They play in the UK-based Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL), making 23 college players signing in Europe and 101 players total to sign a pro deal in North America or Europe.

Hockey East has 22; Big 10 has 21, NCHC 13, AHA 7, ECACHL 6, and the recently mothballed WCHA has three.

Ben Lake (Sacred Heart University-AHA) moves over from the Manchester Storm (EIHL) to Belfast (Northern Ireland-EIHL) in the fall. He has dual citizenship and recently skated for the Great Britain team at the IIHF World Championships in Latvia.

Alexander Fortin, the nephew of former Whaler Jean-Sebastien Giguere, leaves the Colorado Eagles (AHL) and signs a one-year AHL deal with Laval.

Giguere’s other nephew, Cam Lee, plays for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.

The Rocket signed another Quebec native in Danick Martel to a one-year AHL deal. He spent last season with the Binghamton Devils, who played in New Jersey and moved their farm to Utica for this upcoming season.

SEATTLE MAKING MOVES

The Seattle Kraken announced the assistants to the team’s first head coach, Dave Hakstol’s staff. They’ve hired ex-Sound Tiger Jay Leach, who manned the bench for the Atlantic Division-winning Providence Bruins. The other is Paul McFarland, a head coach of the Kingston Frontenacs (OHL). He worked with Hakstol when they were on Mike Babcock’s staff in Toronto with the Maple Leafs.

The Leach hire makes three ex-Sound Tigers in Seattle. They include the Sound Tigers’ one-time head coach Dave Baseggio (Yale University), Director of Pro Scouting, and equipment manager, Jeff Camellia.

Seattle announced their first three games, all exhibitions against all Canadian opponents. The games will be played in Washington State. The first game will be played September 26 against Vancouver in Spokane and the next against Edmonton on October 1st in Everett, and the next night in Kent.

All three cities are home to major junior WHL teams, Spokane Chiefs, Everett Silvertips, and the Seattle Thunderbirds.

The last pre-season game will be played in Vancouver, and the Kraken will open on the road for three regular season games before they baptize their new arena-Climate Pledge Arena.

LOTS MORE MOVEMENT

Ex-Sound Tiger Scott Burt was named the new head coach for the Rapid City Rush (ECHL), replacing another ex-Sound Tiger, Daniel Tetrault, who was let go after four years.

Ivan Nalimov leaves the Rockford Icehogs for the Russian Far East team returning to the KHL after a year off for COVID and financial reasons, HC Vladivostok Admiral (Russia-KHL).

Rinat Valiyev, who didn’t play last year, last skated with the Stockton Heat in 2019-20 signs with AK Bars Kazan (Russia-KHL).

Two members of the Iowa Wild sign overseas, Tyler Sheehy with Nuremberg (Germany-DEL) and Jarrett Burton with the Stavanger Oilers (Norway-NEL).

Ian Scheid leaves the Colorado Eagles and signs with the EHC Straubing (Germany-DEL).

42 AHL’ers have left for Europe, and 21 of 31 AHL clubs have lost at least one player.

Seven players have gone to Germany, and two to Norway and Russia leads with 11 signees, with the KHL has attracted 14 players.

EX-PACK ON THE MOVE

Ex-Pack Chad Nehring,  after taking a year off recovering from a concussion and signed for a fourth German DEL season with a new team, the Augsburger Panthers.

Ex-Wolf Pack/CT Whale Evgeni Grachev departs Dynamo Riga (Latvia-KHL) and heads east through 13 times zones to sign with HC Vladivostok (Russia-KHL).

Ex-Wolf Pack Ahti Oksanen leaves KooKoo (Finland-FEL) and signs with HK Hradec Kralove (Czech Republic-CEL).

MEANWHILE, BACK AT UCONN

The UCONN Hockey East schedule dates are not finalized, but the opponent matrix is set.

After playing all of their home games at the Freitas Ice Forum on the UCONN campus last year, this season will see all of the Huskies/ home games played at the XL Center. The new arena UCONN is building has broken ground, and work is steadily being done.

The Hockey East portion of the schedule will feature three meetings against Boston College, Boston University, University of New Hampshire, and Northeastern. All other series meetings will be two games.

The non-conference home opponents will be Sacred Heart University (AHA) of Fairfield, Colgate, and a home-and-home with American International College – AIC (AHA) from nearby Springfield. The road non-conference schools include; Ohio State (two games), Dartmouth College (ECACHL) that feature former Quinnipiac Bobcat player and coach Reid Cashman as their new coach, and Harvard University (ECACHL).

The Connecticut Ice Festival at Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport returns. The tournament will be played on Saturday and Sunday, January 28th and 29th of 2022. The participants are Connecticut’s D-I teams, Sacred Heart, Yale University, UCONN, and Quinnipiac. No schedule matrix or game times has been finalized.

MORE COLLEGE NEWS

Former Quinnipiac University (ECACHL) assistant Bill Riga is the new head coach at Holy Cross (AHA). He announced his coaching staff, and it has some CT flavor.

Caston Sommer, who played at Hotchkiss Prep (Lakeville, CT) and is a grad of the Crusader program, was an assistant with the Seattle Thunderbirds (WHL) for the last three years. His father is current San Jose Barracuda head coach and the all-time winningest coach in AHL history, Roy Sommer.

Ex-Pack Bobby Butler was named the team’s volunteer coach. Since retiring last season in Hartford, he has been the Director of Hockey Operations for the Worcester Jr. Railers (EHL).

Ex-Danbury Whaler Max Mobley, an assistant last year at Holy Cross, was named the new assistant coach for Canisius College (AHA). Mobley was part of the first class of Arizona youth hockey players to play junior and college hockey.

The Danbury Jr. Hat Tricks of the USA Hockey Tier-2 level NAHL will be playing in a 29 team league in the fall.

Coming back after a year off will be the Jamestown (NY) Rebels, Springfield (Illinois) Jr, Blues coached by ex-Sound Tiger Tyler Rennette, and the Corpus Christi (TX) IceRays.

TEAM MOVEMENT

There will also be two expansion teams and a pair of relocated teams.

The expansion teams are the El Paso (TX) Rhinos and the Anchorage (AK) Wolverines.

The relocated team is the Amarillo (TX) Wranglers; currently, the Kansas City Scouts. They previously were the Topeka Scarecrows. The Amarillo Bulls were relocated to Mason City, Iowa, on the Iowa/Minnesota border. They will be called the North Iowa Bulls.

HARTFORD WOLF PACK

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