BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – It’s the most thrilling time to be a hockey fan as the sport moves on to it’s final series.
STANLEY CUP FINALS
It’s amazing that the Las Vegas Golden Knights have made it to the championship round in their first year.
The final starts on Monday night, Memorial Day, in Las Vegas and the Golden Knights have lots of connection to Connecticut.
Ex-Hartford Wolf Pack and NY Ranger, Jonathan Marchessault, has been playing at a Conn Smythe level. Marchie’s linemate, Reilly Smith, the younger brother of current Ranger and Wolf Pack, Brendan Smith, has as well.
One of Gerard Gallant’s assistant coaches is another former Wolf Pack. He was the team’s head coach, Ryan McGill. Former Hartford Whaler, Jim McKenzie, is a team scout while ex-Whaler, Murray Craven, is a Senior VP Special Advisor.
The LVGK’s opponents will be the Washington Capitals. They knocked off the Tampa Bay Lightning in seven games. The series loss ended the Stanley Cup dreams and that of ex-Pack and Rangers Ryan Callahan, J.T. Miller, Dan Girardi, and Ryan McDonaugh.
The Caps have Connecticut connections as well.
Lane Lambert is a former New Haven Nighthawks player and Bridgeport Sound Tiger head coach. He is one of the team’s assistant coaches. Caps. GM/Senior VP is former New Haven Nighthawk in Brian McClellan and his Nighthawk teammate and a former Ranger, Steve Richmond, is the Director of Player Development.
AHL CALDER CUP FINAL
In the West, the Texas Stars had a stranglehold on their series with the Rockford IceHogs, three games to none. The Stars feature ex-Pack, Mike Paliotta, and a pair of ex-Sound Tigers in Matt Mangene, and Colin Markison. Former Yale Bulldog John Hayden has two goals in the series for Rockford as they have rallied to narrow the series to three-games-to-two after a 3-1 win Friday night.
Game 6 is a Monday night holiday contest in Texas coming in the midst of one those nasty Texas heat waves with everyday in the mid-90’s or better. The puck drops at 7 pm CST.
The Toronto Marlies swept the Lehigh Valley Phantoms in four straight. They won Game 4 by the count of 3-1. Lehigh Valley tied the game at one when Wethersfield Colin McDonald, the Phantoms captain, fired a pass from the left wing goal line to Travis Sanheim who was coming off the right point. He beat an otherwise spectacular Garret Sparks to the far side. Andreas Johansson scored twice for Toronto who held the Phantoms shots over two games.
Alex Lyon, the former Yale goalie, had one of the saves of the year to keep the game tied late in the second. Lyon was down and out and instinctively put up his right pad while lying face down, robbing Johansson.
The Phantoms were shut down by Toronto as they were held to just 36 shots on goal total over the last two games. The Marlies won all six meetings this year with Lehigh Valley the only other team to do that – the Hartford Wolf Pack.
The Marlies won the first three games in Toronto before the series shifted to Lehigh Valley. Ben Smith (Avon/Westminster Prep) scored twice in a 5-0 shutout of the Phantoms in Game 3. Lyon received what probably was the first goalie match penalty in over 20 years using his skate on a Marlies player.
ECHL KELLY CUP FINALS
The Colorado Eagles have one more chance at the title.
They will defend their title in their last ECHL series as they will be upgraded next year to the AHL to be the top affiliate for the Colorado Avalanche.
The Eagles will tango with the Florida Everblades.
Colorado features ex-Pack, Michael Joly, and their assistant coach is ex-Pack Ryan Tobler.
Florida has former Yale defenseman Gus Young and Kent Prep school teammate of Boo Nieves in Logan Roe.
The Eagles won Game 1 Friday by a 3-1 score with Drayson Bowman getting a goal and an assist in a very chippy game that featured 96 PM, in the last 2:48 of the contest.
Game 2 is Sunday night at 7 pm MST.
MEMORIAL CUP TOURNAMENT
The host Regina Pats who haven’t played in six weeks (46 days) are playing for the Memorial Cup title
Regina plays Acadie Bathurst Sunday night at 8 pm (NHL Network) to try to win the 100th edition of the Memorial Cup. The pursuit of the title comes after knocking off Hamilton 4-2 in the tournament semifinal Friday night who were considered the best team in the tournament
Sam Steel, who been electric in the tournament, scored the game winner in the third and set up the empty net insurance goal before a home crowd.
Steel was the first round pick of the Anaheim Ducks in last year’s draft. He went 30th overall.
To get to the semi-finals, the Pats won one of the wildest hockey games ever seen on Wednesday, 6-5, eliminating their fellow Saskatchewan-based WHL team, the Swift Current Broncos. The game was 1-0 midway through the contest where the teams combined for 10 goals over the final 30 minutes.
The game winning goal came off the stick of Ranger prospect, Libor Hajek. The future Ranger defenseman came off the left point, took Steel’s cross ice pass and wired it over the glove of the Broncos’ Stuart Skinner to make it 6-4. It was Steel’s fifth assist of the game tying a Memorial Cup record for helpers in a game.
The Broncos almost tied with a tenth of a second left on the clock.
After the puck had exited the Regina zone, the Broncos’ Jake Leschyshyn fired the puck at the net. Pats goalie Cam Paddock went out to celebrate the win. The puck went into the net and on the video replay it showed a mere 1/10 of second left, but two Broncos were in the zone made it an offside play.
The highly favored Acadie-Bathurst Titan won their first game of the round robin tournament in exciting fashion. They took the game 4-3 in overtime as two of the smallest markets in Canadian major junior hockey battled. Bathurst, New Brunswick has a population of 14,000 and is one of the most bi-lingual parts of Northern New Brunswick which borders Quebec.
The winning goal came off the stick of one-time Avon Old Farms Winged Beavers, Liam Murphy (Killingworth, CT) also a Hartford Jr. Wolf Pack alumni, knocked in a goal mouth scramble for the winner, 2:36 into the extra session. Murphy was at one time a UConn commit four years ago and last season was a minus-60 with Moncton. This year he’s a plus-nine in the regular season and in the Memorial Cup.
Then last Sunday, Acadie-Bathurst, in their great red and gold uniforms, won 7-2 over Regina. The team had to hold for dear life as the Pats roared back in the third period with four goals to make the score 7-6 before an empty netter ended their dreams of a miraculous comeback.
Hamilton Bulldogs executed some strong defensive hockey in holding off Acadie-Bathurst with a 3-2 on Tuesday night.
Regina kicked off the opening game with a goal with 28.2 seconds left to beat the Hamilton Bulldogs 3-2.
The Pats are led by former Pack coach John Paddock and have Hajeck, who was acquired in the McDonaugh-Miller Tampa Bay trade. He will be in Wolf Pack camp in the fall. Also on the roster is Jonas Harkins, youngest son of former Whaler, Todd Harkins, and Leschyshyn, the son of former Whaler, Curtis Leschyshyn. Paddock also is coaching his nephew Max Paddock as one of his goalies.
The OHL announced its All-Star teams and ex-Pack, Drew Bannister (Saulte Ste. Marie Greyhounds) was voted first team head coach.
USHL CLARK CUP FINAL
For the third consecutive year, a brand new, first-time champion is crowned in the USHL.
The Fargo (ND) Force captured the Clark Cup title winning Game 4 of the best of five series 4-2 over the Youngstown (OH) Phantoms.
Goalie Strauss Mann (Greenwich/Brunswick Prep) stopped 26 of 28 shots to pace the victory a 2019 Michigan (Big 10) commit netminder.
Youngstown featured captain Eric Esposito (West Haven/Loomis Chaffe-Windsor) who starts at the University of New Hampshire (HE) in the fall.
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
It came down to a couple of ex-Sound Tigers.
Sweden copped its second consecutive title and 3rd World Championship gold in five years with a 3-2 shootout win over Switzerland who earned the silver medal. The building in Copenhagen,Denmark was packed with Swedish fans since the border between the two countries is just 15 minutes away.
Goalie Anders Nilsson sealed the victory stopping Nino Neidereitter in the fifth round with a pad save.
Joining the gold medal parade was his teammate and goaltending battery mate ex-Pack, Magnus Hellberg, and current Wolf Pack and Ranger, Lias Andersson, who didn’t chuck his gold medal into the crowd as he did with his silver medal for Sweden at the WJC tournament in January in Buffalo.
For Andersson, it ended an exceptionally long season on a high note. He was at the Rangers post draft development camp in Westchester, NY, then traveled to Sweden’s WJC camp in July, played at the WJC Showcase tourney in Plymouth, Michigan.
Andersson was at the Traverse City, MI Prospects tournament, then to Rangers main training camp at MSG by mid-September. Then as a last cut was returned to Frolunda HC of the Swedish Hockey League (SHL) in Gothenburg, Sweden.
His next move was to Sweden’s main WJC camp held in Montreal and to Buffalo for the WJC tournament. After suffering a shoulder injury, Andersson was reassigned to Hartford where he played 24 games. He followed that with four games with the Rangers at the end of the season scoring his first NHL goal with his family present at MSG.
Andersson then came back to Hartford and was assigned on the final weekend of the regular season for the Wolf Pack to the Swedish national team where he played at the European Hockey tournament (EHT). He was then off to the World championship camp and concluding his whirlwind season in Copenhagen and Herning Denmark the last two weeks.
Raphael Diaz, the Swiss team captain, now sprouting some gray hair, in his red number 16 jersey led the Swiss players in accepting their silver medals and silver trophy.
Next spring’s World Championship will be placed in Slovakia in the city of Kosice where the US and Canada will be in group A and in the Slovakia’s second largest city Bratislava which where the Group B games will be played.
The US redeemed itself winning the bronze medal 4-1 over Canada as ex-CT Whale and current Ranger, Chris Kreider had two goals, Farmington’s Nick Bonino scored the game winner with a backhander in front of the net and ex-Sound Tiger Anders Lee tallied a goal in the victory.
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