CANTLON’S CORNER: HARTFORD WOLF PACK OFF SEASON VOLUME TWO 

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – While the Hartford Wolf Pack are reassessing, reevaluating, and making some signings and course corrections, the rest of the hockey world continues to make the news.

AHL CALDER CUP PLAYOFFS

The AHL quarterfinals are set to start this weekend.

In the first, the Lehigh Valley Phantoms will play the Charlotte Checkers. The series will be played in a 2-3-2 format.

In the other, the Toronto Marlies take on the Syracuse Crunch. That series will be in the only traditional playoff formatted series, playing 2-2-1-1-1. Game 1, in a high scoring affair, went to the Marlies who came out on the high end of a 6-4 score.

The Manitoba Moose, who eliminated the defending champion, Grand Rapids Griffins, will take on the Rockford IceHogs. The Tucson Roadrunners, the top affiliate of the Arizona Coyotes, is the franchise’s first farm team since 1997 to make the AHL playoffs. They will challenge the Texas Stars. 

AHL COACHING CHANGES

The list of coaches being relieved of their duties – fired for those who prefer the more blunt way of saying it – has grown to five following Sylvain Lefebvre (Laval Rocket), the first to be let go.

Troy Mann (Hershey Bears), assistant coach and ex-Pack, Randy Murphy were dismissed after the Bears finished in last-place for the first time since 1983-84 in the AHL Atlantic. Former QU Bobcat Reid Cashman remains as an assistant coach.

After nine years with the Edmonton Oilers organization, Gerry Fleming was let go by the Bakersfield Condors. Also relieved of their position were assistants, Tony Borgford. That move matches their parent club in Edmonton who relieved its entire coaching staff including Todd Mcllelan, Ian Herbers, and Jim Johnson.

The Oilers wasted little time appointing Jay Woodcroft as the Condors new head coach. He was an Oilers assistant for the last three years.

Eric Veilleux was let go by the San Antonio Rampage. He could be returning to the QMJHL after a surprise opening came up in Halifax, after the Mooseheads fired their head coach, Jim Midgley, after just one season.

The latest to be pink-slipped is former New Haven Nighthawk, Kurt Kleinendorst. He was fired for the second time as a head coach of an Ottawa AHL franchise. The first time was in Binghamton. He was let go after the team’s initial year in Belleville. The assistant coaches are one-time Nighthawk, Paul Boutilier and former New Haven Senator, Tony Cimellaro, who are staying put for now.

CHAMPIONS CROWNED

The Federal Hockey League saw the Watertown Wolves win the league title while the SPHL’s Huntsville Havoc shut the door on the Peoria Rivermen’s third straight final appearance. The Havoc won the series in two straight games in the best of three final.

WORLD UNDER-18 TOURNAMENT

After marching thru the tourney, the US team lost in the gold medal game to Finland.

In Division II, Group B, New Zealand knocked-off Hong Kong 8-5 to earn a promotion to Division II Group A next year.

USHL DRAFT

The top US junior draft will be held early next week in the usual two-phase format.

Phase I starts Monday, May 7th at 6:00 pm CST and is limited to 2002 birth year eligible players. A team can sign a player to a tender contract guaranteeing them a roster spot for the 2018-19 season. If a team does that, they lose a first-round pick. Teams are only permitted two tenders a year and if a second player is signed the team loses a second-round pick. Currently, eight players have been signed to tenders as of Thursday.

Phase Two is Tuesday, May 8 and is an open draft format.

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP TOURNAMENT

The US finally released their team’s roster. Several names with Connecticut connection dot the lineup sheet.

Cam Atkinson (Greenwich/AOF), ex-Pack, Brian Gibbons (Salisbury Prep), ex-CT Whale, and current New York Ranger, Chris Kreider, ex-Sound Tiger, Anders Lee, ex-Pack, Neal Pionk, and Tage Thompson (Orange/UConn).

Canada is led by former Hartford Whaler, Sean Burke as the team GM. Their roster sports two ex-Sound Tigers, in Ryan Pulock, and Anthony Beauvillier.

Switzerland has ex-Pack/Ranger, Raphael Diaz, and ex-Sound Tiger, Nino Niederreiter.

Belarus has ex-Wolf Pack, Vladimir Denisov.

Slovakia’s roster has a former Sound Tiger, Tomas Marcinko, and one of the assistant coaches is former Whaler, Robert Petrovicky.

Host Norway has ex-Pack, Nicklas Jensen, and former Sound Tiger, Franz Nielsen.

The Czech Republic has no Filip Chytil, but they do have a former Beast of New Haven as an assistant coach, Jaroslav Spacek.

Russia has ex-Pack/Ranger, Artem Anisimov, and former Wolf Pack, and current Ranger, Pavel Buchnevich. They also have Rangers’ draft pick, goalie, Igor Shestyorkin.

Sweden does have the Wolf Pack’s Lias Andersson (read the following piece) and in goal, former Wolf Pack, Magnus Hellberg. They also have former Sound Tiger, Anders Nilsson, as well as current Ranger, Mika Zibanejad.

The tournament starts in Copenhagen, and Herning, Denmark on Friday. The US and Canada start the tournament with a day off.

Just before the tournament got underway, the IIHF issued suspensions to four players of Sweden’s World Junior Championship squad for their conduct in Buffalo.

One of those suspended is Andersson, who infamously tossed his silver medal into the crowd. He was hit with the toughest ban, four games. Since the suspension wouldn’t have mattered as Andersson is aged out and would have likely been on the Rangers NHL roster and ineligible to play anyway, the IIHF changed it to keep him from the World Championship games next season.

Rasmus Dahlin, who is expected to be the first overall in the NHL Draft pick in Dallas next month, was given a two-game ban. It affects only his eligibility for the 2019 WJC and 2019 Under-18 team games. He was 17 at the time of the incident, but he is not on Sweden’s team.

Read the full details of the decision HERE

PLAYERS AND COACHES, PLAYING, ON THE MOVE OR SIGNINGS

Ex-Pack, Chris Summers, leads 13 Wilkes Barre/Scranton Penguins players elevated to Pittsburgh to be Black Aces.

Connor Clifton, a QU Bobcat grad, was called up from the Providence to the Boston Bruins.

Ranger draft choice Tim Gettinger and his Sault Ste. Marie (Ontario) Greyhounds won the OHL Western Conference final against the Kitchener Rangers 4-3 in double overtime. Gettinger has 16 points in 18 playoff games. He had no points in Game 7 but led the team with six shots on goal. The team also featured Hayden Verbeek, the nephew of former Whaler and Ranger, Pat Verbeek. Hayden is finishing his junior career and has signed a three-year entry-level deal with the Montreal Canadiens that starts next season.

Pat Verbeek is the current assistant GM and Director of Player Development for the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The Greyhounds head coach is ex-Pack, Drew Bannister. His assistant coach is former Ranger, Joe Cirella.

The OHL Finals pits the Greyhounds against the Hamilton Bulldogs, who eliminated the Kingston Frontenacs. That team featured Rangers prospect defenseman, Sean Day who will play in Hartford next fall.

The last line of attachment between the Hartford Whalers and Carolina Hurricanes was NHL Hall-of-Famer, Ron Francis. While he is the franchise’s all-time leader in scoring, it was announced on Monday that Francis was dismissed as the team’s President of Hockey Operations after having been demoted from the GM position nearly two months ago.

The Hurricanes are an organization in complete disarray.

Despite a revitalized AHL farm team in Charlotte, and having the second overall pick in the upcoming NHL Draft, not only does the team not have someone in Francis’ role, but the team has no head coach, and Pro Scout – and Francis loyalist, Joe Nieuwendyk, also resigned this week.

Read about it HERE.

One-time Whalers GM, Brian Burke, announced that he is stepping down from being the President of Hockey Operations for the Calgary Flames.

The Montreal Canadiens released former Wolf Pack assistant coach, J.J. Daigneault, after six years. The former Ranger and Daniel Lacroix were shown the exit door last Friday.

Rick Dudley, 69, a former Nighthawks head coach, was also dismissed by Montreal and also after six years on the job. Dudley was not unemployed long as he has signed a two-year deal with the Carolina Hurricanes to be their Senior VP of Hockey Operations.

Sam Anas, the former QU Bobcat, has signed a new two-year, two-way deal with the Minnesota Wild.

Former Yale Bulldog, Ryan Hitchcock, has signed a two-year AHL deal with Bridgeport. After Yale’s season concluded, he signed an ATO deal and played five games for the Sound Tigers.

Former Sound Tiger goalie, Mikko Koskinen, signed a one-year, one-way deal with Edmonton. He played the last four years with SKA St. Petersburg (Russia-KHL) and with the Finnish Olympic team this year.

Patrick Roy is back as GM/Head Coach for the Quebec Remparts (QMJHL) after ex-NHL’er Phillippe Boucher stepped down two weeks ago after five years in the role.

Three more AHL’ers are heading to Europe next year. They are former Yale Bulldog, Andrew Miller, who was with Charlotte. He heads to HC Fribourg-Gotteron (Switzerland-LNA) and his new Swiss teammate is the Swiss-born goalie, Reto Berra, who leaves the San Diego Gulls to return HC Fribourg too. Defenseman Andrey Pedan one of the Penguins Black Aces leaves Wilkes Barre/Scranton to join AK Bars Kazan (Russia-KHL).

Ex-CT Whale defenseman, Blake Parlett, leaves Eisbaren Berlin (Germany-DEL) to make his way to Kunlun (China KHL) next year.

Ex-UConn defenseman, Jonna Kunnas, goes from Grenoble (France-FREL) to HC Mulhousie (France-FREL) in the Elite Magnus League.

Lucas Bombardier, a former CT Oiler who played this year for the Knoxville Ice Bears (SPHL) heads to play for the Botany Swarm (New Zealand-NZIHL) this summer.

IIHF WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS DIVISION II

For Cheshire native Rob Malloy, things were going well for his Mighty Roos Australian national team. They were undefeated going into their last game of Division II Group A tourney in Tilburg, Netherlands with a grand chance to be elevated to Division 1 Group B. Well, that all ended with a crushing loss at the hands of the host country.

The undefeated host, the Netherlands (5-0-0), crushed Australia’s hopes with a 9-2 victory. They tallied four goals in the first 1:02 of the game. Ivy van den Heuvel had three assists for the Dutch while Thomas Stempher added a goal and three assists.

The goal of the game, and maybe the tournament, came off Mickey Bastings’ stick. He was in full flight, took a pass from van den Heuvel, did a spin-a-rama before, with his back to the Aussie goalie, Anthony Kimlin, going backhand-to-forehand and put it in the net.

The first loss by Australia came a day after an emotional 5-4 shootout win over Serbia that kept their gold medal hopes alive.

The Mighty Roos built a 4-2 lead as Malloy, who had a strong tournament factored into their attaining the lead early in the third period.

After starting an early opportunity in the second period by winning a one-on-one battle behind the net, Malloy set-up teammate Matt Armstrong, who was stopped at 13:48. A few minutes later, Malloy delivered a clean and thundering hard hit to Serbian defenseman, Dominik Crnogora. the hit left Crnogora in a heap.

At 1:04 of the third period Malloy on the right wing and got the puck after defenseman Per Goransson’s left point shot sailed wide to the short-side. The puck came right off the backboards to Malloy who beat goalie Arsene Rankovic before he could recover and broke a 2-2 tie.

At 6:55, Malloy was on the left-wing side of the net. He took a shot that went off the skate of Serbian defenseman, Peter Novakovic’s skate. Armstrong was there to backhand the loose puck past Razanovic and gave the Mighty Roos a seemingly secure 4-2 lead.

Four consecutive penalties in the second-half of the third period allowed the Serbs to even the game. On some loose defensive play, the Serbs got a two-on-one that ended with Marko Sretovic on the right wing to make it 4-3.

A five-on-three power play followed and with their goalie pulled turned it into a six-on-three with ten seconds left. Novakovic was on the right wing side when he buried a cross-ice pass to tie the game at four.

After a scoreless five minute overtime, the teams had to rely on the shootout.

Australia’s Beau Taylot’s tally proved to be the game-winner.

The Netherlands earned the gold and promotion, while Australia earned the silver and Serbia took the bronze.

China, in its first time at the Division 2 level, finished fourth. They will play Yale University in December as they seek to upgrade their skill level in preparation for hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics.

In Division II, Group B, Great Britain pulled off an upset winning 3-2 over host Hungary in Budapest to capture the gold. Italy took silver and Kazakhstan took bronze.

In Division 1, Group B, an all Baltic final as host Lithuania won 4-1 over Estonia with ex-Pack, and Ranger, Darius Kasparaitis in the lineup. Japan took the silver and Estonia earned the bronze. Kasparaitis announced he was officially retired from playing at age 46

EURO CHAMPS

The ZSC Zurich Lions captured the Swiss NLA title in seven games over HC Lugano.

The Lions have ex-Ranger, Kevin Klein, who is retiring as well as former Wolf Pack and Ranger, Lauri Korpikoski. Former Sound Tiger, Robert Nilsson (the younger brother of Anders Nilsson) had a season-ending knee injury early in the campaign.

HC Lugano had former Wolf Pack and Ranger Bobby Sanguinetti.

The winner of the NLB Swiss League was SC Rapperswil-Jona, who earned a promotion to the NLA after beating the NLA’s EHC Kloten for honors. For Kloten, it will be the first time in 56 years they will not be in the countries, top-tier league.

The Aalborg Pirates captured the Denmark title beating the Herning Blue Fox in six games. They won the title-clinching 4-2. It was the Pirates first championship in 37 years.

The Pirates had ex-Sound Tiger forward Kirill Kabanov and one time Quinnipiac University Bobcat, Peter Quenneville.