CANTLON’S CORNER: OFF-SEASON NEWS AND NOTES – VOLUME II 

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – Much has gone on in the hockey world.

In the AHL Calder Cup Playoffs, the best-of-five first-round series have mostly ended and there are a few surprises.

The Bridgeport Sound Tigers won Game 4 in overtime 3-2 in Hershey to extend the series to a deciding Game 5 on Saturday night at the Webster Bank Arena. That game went to the Bears who advanced to the second round with a 3-2 OT win on a Brian Pinho goal.

In game four, Oliver Wahlstrom scored his first pro goal at 1:13 of the third period to tie the game at two and Matt Lorito scored at 1:13 of overtime to claim the win offsetting ex-Pack Jayson Megna’s second period unassisted shorthanded goal and the first Hershey goal was scored by ex-pack Ryan Sproul.

Kyle Burroughs paced the offense with two assists.

Hershey will take on the Charlotte Checkers in a best of seven series starting Friday night.

One series that didn’t last long, was the only sweep of the first-round as the Toronto Marlies continued its strong second half by eliminating the Rochester Americans. Ex-Pack, Chris Mueller led the way with five points.

The Marlies will play the Cleveland Monsters who knocked off the Syracuse Crunch in four games with a 3-0 shutout on Thursday. The Monsters feature Simsbury native and Westminster Prep grad, Tommy Cross, and ex-Pack, Dan DeSalvo.

San Diego eliminated the San Jose Barracuda in four games. The first game of the series that kicked off the Calder Cup playoffs was a wild 6-5 OT win for the Gulls in one of the craziest first periods you’ll ever see with six goals scored in 10 minutes and both starting goalies were pulled.

Ex-Pack TJ Hensick scored the first goal of the AHL postseason and added an assist on the third goal as the Barracuda had a 3-0 lead after just 6:15 of play. The Gulls starter Kevin Boyle was pulled after just six shots on goal.

The Gulls roared back to tie the game at three in a span of 3:08 forcing San Jose’s Antoine Bibeau to an early shower after just eight shots on goal.

Former Beast of New Haven, Dallas Eakins, is the head coach with a pair of ex-Pack players from different era’s, David Urquhart and Sylvain Lefebvre are the assistant coaches and a third ex-Pack, J.F. Labbe is the Gulls goalie coach.

Ironically, Bibeau was recalled the next day by the parent San Jose Sharks.

The Gulls will play the Bakersfield Condors, winners over the Colorado Eagles in four games.

The Iowa Wild defeated the Milwaukee Admirals in Five games defeating ex-Pack captain, Cole Schneider, and another ex-Pack, Vince Pedrie, also on the Milwaukee roster.

The last game of the opening round was played Sunday between the Chicago Wolves and the Grand Rapids Griffins. The Red Wings top farm team features ex-Pack’s Dylan McIlrath, Matt Puempel, Matt Ford, Wade Megan (Salisbury Prep) and Dominic Turgeon, the nephew of former Whaler Sylvain Turgeon.

PLAYER MOVES

Ex-Pack Desmond Bergin signs with his fourth AHL team this year with the Cleveland Monsters. He spent most of the year with Adirondack (ECHL). His other AHL stops were; Providence, Milwaukee, Binghamton.

The last player to wear a New Haven pro hockey jersey playing in an active top level league has retired. Ex-New Haven Knights (UHL) Hungarian forward, Arpad Mihaly, announced his retirement after playing for ASC Corona Brasov (Romania-MOL) after five years with the team. Nathan Lutz, a defenseman who played two playoff games for the Knights and who skated in the Canadian senior hockey league this year with the Porcupine Plains Blues (Saskatchewan) of the Wheatland Senior Hockey League (WSHL) (names not made up) is the last one who remains playing. It will be unknown until November when Canadian senior hockey regular season play commences, if Lutz, 41, will share the honor with Mihaly or become the last one.

The last Nighthawk to play was Steve Moria at 50 in England and the last Beast of New Haven players to skate were Bryon Ritchie in Sweden and Herbert Vasiljves in Germany.

Ex-Pack Chad Nehring leaves Fischtown (Germany-DEL) to Dusseldorfer EG (Germany-DEL) next season.

Ex-Pack Tomas Zaborsky leaves Tappara (Finland-FEL) for SaiPa (Finland-FEL) next season.

Travis Turnbull, the cousin of former Nighthawk, Randy Turnbull, goes from Iserlohn (Germany-DEL) to EHC Straubing (Germany-DEL).

Ex-Bridgeport Sound Tiger and New York Ranger, David Desharnais, goes from Avangard Omsk (Russia-KHL) to HC Fribourg-Gotteron (Switzerland-LNA).

Two former Sound Tigers have hung up the skates, Peter MacArthur Adirondack (ECHL) and Tyler Barnes Worcester (ECHL).

Francis Drolet (Salisbury Prep) played with HC Briancon (France Division-1) signs for summer hockey with Newcastle (Australia-AIHL) whose regular season begins next weekend. Cheshire’s Rob Malloy, the team captain, of Newcastle returns for his seventh AIHL campaign.

Ex-CT Whale, Andreas Thuresson, signs with ERC Schwenniger (Germany-DEL) joining ex-Pack, Matt Carey, as an offseason signing for the 2019-20 season.

IIHF World U-18 tournament is underway in Sweden as the US romped over Latvia 7-1 and in the quarterfinals shutout Finland 6-0 on Thursday. The US lost to the Russians on Saturday in one semifinal and in the other semi, Canada lost to Sweden. The United States won the Bronze medal after defeating Canada 5-2.

The US team features goalie Spencer Knight (Darien), who picked up 21 saves in his first shutout. A former Avon Old Farms player committed to play at Boston College (HE) in the fall and will likely be selected in the first three rounds of the NHL Draft in Vancouver in June.

His fellow Winged Beaver teammate, Trevor Zegras, BU bound in the fall helped set up a hat trick for the likely number one overall pick by New Jersey in Vancouver Jack Hughes in the win.

Latvia’s assistant coach is the aforementioned former Beast of New Haven forward, Herbert Vasiljves.

Latvia features Raimonds Vitolins, the youngest son of former New Haven Senator, Harijs Vitolins.

Canada has Samuel Poulin, the son of former Hartford Whaler, Patrick Poulin, who skates for Val D’Or (QMJHL).

In men’s action, the IIHF Division II Group B World Championship playing in Mexico City, Mexico one of the six teams, is Israel. Their head coach is former Whaler and Ranger, Robert (Bobby) Holik.

Holik also coached their Division 2 Group B World Junior and the U-18 team this season as well.

The countries in their pool were Iceland, the nation of Georgia (great logo), New Zealand and North Korea.

The IIHF Division III tournament is in Sofia, Bulgaria has Turkmenistan, Luxembourg, Turkey, host Bulgaria, Taiwan (Chinese Tapei), and South Africa who features Charl Pretorius who was the first South African to play in the US minor leagues with Elmira (FHL) after finishing collegiate hockey at Division III  Nazareth College (UCHC).

The IIHF Division III Qualifying tourney was held in Dubai and host UAE (United Arab Emirates) was the winner beating out teams from Hong Kong, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Kuwait, Thailand, and Kyrgyzstan.

The US has named some of the first players for the red, white and blue squad that will play in Kosice, Slovakia at the World Championships in two weeks. The group included current Ranger, ex-CT Whale, Chris Kreider, and current Ranger and ex-Pack, Brady Skjei. Current Hartford GM and Rangers Assistant GM and Trumbull native, Chris Drury was named GM for the team.

The US Advisory committee features current Rangers GM, Jeff Gorton, former Nighthawk, Don Waddell (Carolina), Paul Fenton (Minnesota) and former Ranger goalie great, John Vanbiesbrouck (US National program).

Hockey titles in Austria in the EBEL elite league was decided as  KAC Klagenfurt knocked off the Vienna Capitals in six games winning the title-clinching game 3-2 in OT. Vienna featured former CT Whale Kelsey Tessier.

The VHL (Vyasa Hockey League) the AHL to Russia’s KHL league saw Sary Arka Karaganda (Kazakhstan) knocked off Rubin Tyumen in a four-game sweep.

NCAA RECRUITING CHANGE

A long overdue change in the NCAA recruiting process for hockey was finally passed and becomes effective May 1st.

The recruiting period for high school sophomores is limited until after January 1st allowing for phone calls, e-mails, texts, unofficial school visits, and camp and clinic conversations only.

Then a window starting August 1st of their junior year when a scholarship offers can be made verbally by the school, official visits can be made and off-campus visits can be done.

Not perfect, but a start to the present system that is wide open, with no structures and kids as young as 14-years-old were making oral commitments to schools. Conferring adulthood, so early has been the sin of the college recruiting process in part to counteract the Canadian major junior leagues ability to offer more inducements to young hockey players to go that route.

Presently, a hockey player can play Canadian Junior A hockey which is a step below major junior in leagues like the BCHL or AJHL and still retain their NCAA eligibility, but if they play a minute of hockey with a major junior team, pre-season or regular season, they are ineligible to play collegiate hockey.

This is the first step to curb the insanity and bring some normalcy to the process and a perfect example of this is 15-year-old Max Namestnikov, the son of former Wolf Pack Evgeni “John” Namestnikov, and the brother of current Ranger, Vladislav Namestnikov, just made an oral commit to Michigan State (Big 10) for 2023-24 !

The pyramid for a young US born hockey player who wants to gain a scholarship is first public school, then prep school, then the US junior or Canadian junior A and then college. Read more HERE.