CANTLON: WOLF PACK MAJOR THREE-IN-THREE DIVISION WEEKEND 

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – The wound needs time to heal.

The loss of captain Cole Schneider via trade on Monday had far more impact than the trade last year of Joe Whitney. The loss was palpable.

“The first practice (Tuesday) was tough. It was like losing a family member as Cole was a big part of our family,” said Pack head coach Keith McCambridge, who wore the C the last three years with the defunct Alaska Aces (ECHL).

“Your leaders wear letters for a reason. Whenever you take those pieces out of your dressing room those are big shoes to fill. We’re gonna have to fill that void in leadership. The person who wears the ‘C’ has a strong voice in the room. We do lose the many things Cole brought to the table, but we get a player back with significant AHL experience.”

Before the question was finished, McCambridge laid out the leadership equation for the remainder of the regular season.

“We’re going with three A’s. Peter Holland will have an A on his jersey (Friday) night. When you set and design your team, you have a captain, but we’re now past the halfway part of the season. We have the structure in place. It really is a credit to them that we have had such a solid leadership corp this season. It’s like an eight-cylinder engine. You lose a spark plug and trying to fill it in. Time will tell how this new leadership structure will work. Cole was a hard working individual who poured his heart and soul into this. The tough business side of things is never easy.”

Whether it works or not is anyone’s guess, but one thing for sure is that telling the players on a way to move forward is not an easy task.

“I told them he was a part of our family starting from September and you hope till early June (Calder Cup Final time) you’re together as a family. I really like this group. They get along well together, and a piece of our family was taken away. I always speak from the heart to the team,” McCambridge said.

McCambridge was channeling his captain’s player role, not so much being their head coach

“I liked Cole a lot. He was a good man. I like what he represented. Now, we have to pick up the slack in a leadership void and what he brought (to the team) on the ice as well.”

Holland has eight years of pro experience and this never gets easy.

“We’re bummed out for sure. That is the tough part of the business, and we signed up for it, and we all know the possibilities,” Holland said. “Our lives can be tossed into a blender and get traded away.”

Holland has felt the sting of trades as well. “It’s a big hole in the locker room for sure.“

The loss of Schneider is genuinely being felt throughout the locker room.

“He’ll be hard to replace and missed. He was a vocal leader and he held guys accountable in a good way, guys respected him. It’s gonna hurt in the mentoring role we have had with the younger guys, this is a big lesson to learn. Certainly, his offense will be missed, so, it means we all have to step in in our own way to fill that void. It does suck that’s for sure.”

Holland was one of the first to learn Schneider had been dealt.

“I got a text from him saying that he had been traded and I really thought he was joking because there was inkling this was coming. I tried to Facetime with him and got no response for awhile he was talking with family and friends and it started to dawn on me this might be more real than I thought. We live in the same building and it’s a short elevator ride down…it was kinda crazy. He was very surprised by it.”.

When Holland was traded from Anaheim to Toronto he was in a different place than he is now.

“First time I got traded I was 20-21 years old. A young guy, a single guy and I thought it was a big deal, it wasn’t. You pack up one place and away you go. It gets a lot harder as you get older, It gets to be a bigger deal. You have live-in girlfriends, pets and in some cases kids or kids in school. The amount of (anxiety) increases tremendously, and it’s a huge change in your life when you’re traded in the next 12 hours you’re gone! You need friends and family to pick up the piece when you have to leave, it’s a big scramble.”

He saw the same thing while in the NHL.

“I was with the Leafs when Dion Phaneuf got traded. Even if you know it might be coming, it’s still a shock to the system. One day there’s a nameplate on the locker, and the next day it’s empty. Teams are like family. It’s tough.”

Now, sporting the “A” stitched to his jersey, a few more bricks are riding on his shoulders.

“We have a good leadership group. It’s an opportunity for everybody to take on new roles within the team. It adds a little more pressure to do some of the things Cole did here.”

For Connor Brickley, he was on the other side of the trade. His adventure was equally wild. He arrived in Hartford at midnight and had his first practice Thursday.

“I had woken up from my pre-game nap. We’re in Winnipeg to play the Manitoba Moose. I was waking up around 4 pm (Central time) my phone was going off with text messages from friends and (management). I don’t have a Canadian phone plan, so it wasn’t dialing out. So, I had to borrow my roommate’s (Jared Tinordi) phone to make a few calls and found out I wouldn’t be playing that night.”

Brickley was tempered in responding to how much he knew.

“There had been rumblings, but I really didn’t expect anything. It’s always nice to get a new opportunity and it’s nice to be wanted. It’s a fresh start for me and gives me a chance to show the Rangers what I can put on display.”

Brickley is familiar with the XL Center having played for the Portland Pirates for two years.

Brickley is playing for a contract since his current one-year deal expires in June.

“Fans will see a fast, hard-working forward who can play physical and get the puck to the net and get some gritty goals,” Brickley said. “I’m really looking forward to it.”

The deal caught people by surprise, but those on the inside, this was in the works in two stages, one in November, and the other over the past two weeks.

A knowledgeable source filled Cantlon’s Corner in on the details.

“Nashville actually was offered Schneider back in November, but they declined. The Rangers really had zeroed in on Brickley in the last month, and over the last two weeks things got serious and the deal was made.”

McCambridge was able to say out loud, in a dark-humored way, what everybody is thinking.

“Players are smart. They know what’s going on around them. When you have that many people (captains) traded in a row it does become the proverbial “kiss of death.”

Sadly, the captaincy in Hartford once so revered has become just that.

BIG WEEKEND

No way to underestimate how important this three-in-three is. It cannot be overstated. The Wolf Pack are above the .500 mark at 18-17-2-2 (40 points) and sit in seventh place in the Atlantic Division. They are four points behind the Springfield Thunderbirds, and three points behind the current eighth place, Toronto Marlies. They want to keep in the hunt for the final playoff spot. On this weekend they’ll have three solid chances to make a dent in that pursuit as they host Lehigh Valley Friday, Springfield Saturday and Monday afternoon in Providence.

Holland is keenly aware of the importance the second half of this season and its overall importance to the younger players developmentally.

“I can speak from experience. When I was with the Toronto Marlies in my third year as a pro, we had a phenomenal run. We lost in Game 7 to Texas, who went on to win (the Calder Cup) against Keith (McCambridge’s) team when he was in St. John’s. It’s so much fun playing hockey at that time of year. You work all year to get there, and if you don’t make the playoffs, you don’t know what you’re missing. For guys who have been there, you gotta sell the guys who maybe had some experience in junior and college, its different at this (AHL) level.”

We know all three teams this weekend very well. They all bring very strong offensive teams and we’re gonna have to beat teams that are ahead of us (to make the playoffs). We have to focus on what we need to do, playing good sound team defense is key.”

These are huge divisional games for us and at this point, there is just a half season left. We need the points.”

McCambridge is keenly aware of the standings and the big push is now on.

“You have a lot of teams jockeying for that position in our division. There is an opening there and everybody has their eyes on it. We were happy we beat Springfield. We lost the two games with Providence, so we didn’t do ourselves any favors. We have to be consistently gathering points at this stage of the season. Lehigh Valley is a really good team, offensively-minded, and we had a very good game against them last time. They remember it. They’re a transition and fast team and all the more reason we have to have a strong start.”

The Pack lost Ryan Lindgren to recall to the Rangers, and the Wolf Pack will have just six defensemen with Sean Day, who will be in the line-up, but the recall for Lindgren (now wearing jersey 55) brought a smile to McCambridge’s face amid dealing with the fall out of the Schneider trade.

“I’m happy for him. You’re happy when they get that call and for myself, it’s nice to watch him play his first NHL game, and as many times you make those calls, when guys get the opportunity to achieve their lifetime goal to play in the NHL, those calls never get old.”

NOTES:

UPDATE: Sunday’s game with Providence has been postponed to MLK Jr. Day Monday at 3:05 pm at the Dunkin’ Arena in Providence.***

Brickley will wear the number 23 for the Wolf Pack.

Schneider wore 25 in his first game with the Admirals. He had three shots on goal and no points in Winnipeg.

Lehigh Valley reassigned goalie Brandon Komm, who played his first AHL game last time the Phantoms were in town. He goes to Reading (ECHL) and Anthony Stolarz was sent down for a conditioning stint by the Flyers. He will likely start in net against the Pack.

Dustin Tokarski gets the call for the Wolf Pack.

Another day, another AHL-style trade as Lehigh Valley will receive Justin Bailey from Rochester, a big forward who heads to upstate New York, Tyler Leier. Since Christmas nine AHL level trades have been made and were now just five weeks out from the NHL Trading deadline. Usually, these trades occur just before or after the deadline.

This is an inordinate amount and shows how much cap tweaking is going on in preparation for a potential work stoppage in 2020-21.

Steven Fogarty (concussion) is listed as day-to-day. McCambridge is hoping he gets clearance and can get in one game this weekend. Shawn O’Donnell (upper body) is doubtful for the weekend, but he is hoping he might be ready by mid-week (against Springfield) next week.

Terrance Wallin is back from Maine was signed to a PTO deal.

“He’s been a very reliable player for us, important centerman for us and has stepped into several roles for us and he will be in the lineup this weekend.”

Springfield lost JT Brown to recall by Florida. The Sound Tigers reassigned former Yale Bulldog Ryan Hitchcock to Worcester (ECHL), and goalie, Alex Nedejlkovic, was recalled by Carolina from Charlotte.

A lineup addition possibility for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms could have been ex-Wolf Pack/CT Whale Dale Weise, who cleared NHL waivers on Wednesday, and is now eligible to be reassigned to the Phantoms. As of Noon, Friday Weise has yet to be assigned by Philadelphia who scratched him from the Boston game Wednesday night. He was on waivers at the start of the season and not claimed.

Weise’s now 30 years old. His only AHL duty was in Hartford in 2011. He played 194 games with 57 goals and 111 points and since then he has played 481 NHL games with Vancouver, Montreal, Chicago and Philadelphia. The always verbose Winnipegger has one more year left of a four-year $9.4 million dollar deal he signed with departed Flyers GM Ron Hextall at a $2.5 million cap hit next year.

Ex-CT Whale and friend of Weise’s, defenseman, Michael Del Zotto was traded by Vancouver to Anaheim

Max Jones, the son of ex-Nighthawk Brad Jones, was recalled from San Diego by Anaheim.

Ex-Pack Ryan Graves was returned to Colorado (AHL) by the Avalanche and ex-Pack Caleb Herbert departed the Colorado Eagles to Utah (ECHL).

Ex-QU Bobcat Jordan Samuels-Thomas (South Windsor) who had been playing with Medvescak Zagreb (Croatia-EBEL) signs a PTO deal with Hershey.

Former Sound Tiger Nino Niederreiter has changed NHL addresses going from Minnesota to Carolina.

Goalie Callum Booth (Salisbury Prep) was reassigned to Reading (ECHL) by Charlotte.

Ex-CT Whale defenseman and all around good guy Pavel Valentenko was traded from Uzhny- Ural Orsk (Russia-VHL) to Yugra-Khanty (Russia-VHL),

Lukas Znosko (Stamford) was let go by Zaglebie Sosnowice (Poland-PZIHL).