Been Awhile

There is no question that fighting is on the decrease in the NHL.  The goon is almost completely out of the game.  It almost seems strange that the team leading the league in fighting has 31 fights this year.  One player alone would do that 20 years ago.

It's also interesting that the AHL has never seemed to catch wind of the trend.  23 of the 30 teams have at least 31 fights.  Binghamton is at 80.  That's a lot.

Then there was last night.  Hershey and Bridgeport had some problems.

Poulin and Copley are the goalies.  Mayfield for Bridgeport left the penalty box to get involved.  O'Brien left the player bench.  The youtube type videos are interesting.  It wasn't a crazy brawl like ten years ago but the one thing noticeable is the refs had absolutely no control.  It went from minor pushing and shoving to a lot of talking to a complete brawl.

Opening Night

Welcome back AHL.  Welcome back.





187 Penalty Minutes on opening night.  Hell of a way to kick off the season.

Alaska Wins

Alaska wins their third championship in the last nine years.  They've never even missed the playoffs since joining the ECHL although it's not hard playing in the west.  Rob Murray coached the team to victory this season.  Brent Thompson did it in 2011.  Both are in the top ten for most penalty minutes in AHL history.  There is your random stat of the day.  Or how about this?  Keith McCambridge coached Alaska before Thompson.  He made the Final but lost.  Before him was Davis Payne, the first coach of Alaska when they became a member of the ECHL and first to lead them to a championship.  Payne is now an assistant with Los Angeles who are one win away from the Stanley Cup.  McCambridge is head coach of St. John's who are playing in the Calder Cup Final.

On to the guys who got it done on the ice.

Strong overall team.  I've always been a Brendan Connolly fan though his success has come entirely in the ECHL.  He is a good player with a lot of grit to his game for being relatively small at 5'8 180 lbs.

The playoffs in professional hockey this year have remained more PG rated in terms of fighting in recent memory.  It might be a sign of the time or a sign of future change.  Could have just been one of those seasons.  Yet you still get something unique.  Nick Mazzolini with the "C" next to his name above has the distinction (for now) of leading all players in the NHL, AHL and ECHL in playoff points.  He also has the most penalty minutes.

One quick note about a very solid Cincinnati team that I would have pegged to be in the Finals a month ago comes in the form of an ECHL first.  Goalie Rob Madore was the playoffs MVP this year.  He becomes the first player in league history to win the award on the losing team.

Quick News

I quickly realize there is no way I can possibly keep up with all the player movement that continues to go on as hockey begins the transition to the off-season before the puck drops again in September.

Here are some brief news updates:

- When Sochi became host to the Olympics the new arenas were set to house a new professional KHL hockey team.  That team, the Leopards, begin play next season.  They already plucked two AHL players with NHL experience away.  Cory Emmerton who played most of the season with Grand Rapids and two seasons with Detroit is headed over.  Mark Olver played parts of the last five seasons with Lake Erie also factoring in 74 NHL games with Colorado will join Emmerton.  This comes after Sochi picked up former NHL goalie Michael Leighton who played very well for Donbass this past year.

- For some reason I was always a Joakim Lindstrom fan when he started playing in the AHL in 2005-06.  He spent three seasons in Syracuse (remember all entry level contracts are for three years) and also played over 30 games for Columbus.  He spent the majority of the next season in the NHL with Phoenix getting in 44 games with 20 points.  Then he left.  After two seasons in Europe and to my surprise he signed with Colorado.  He lasted 16 games before returning to Sweden spending that season and two more with his hometown team.  Well guess what.  He is coming back again.  Now at 30 he signed with St. Louis.  Not a bad place to sign.

-  Unfortunate news from earlier this afternoon when Oshawa (OHL) announced that Eric Wellwood would become assistant coach.  Good that he landed a coaching job but not what the plan was at 24.  Wellwood was the player who nearly bled to death after his own skate cut four tendons and an artery in the back of his leg when he fell into the boards while playing with the Phantoms (AHL) last season.  He missed the entire season this year.   The injury which has been said by many to be one of the worst they have ever seen did enough damage for Wellwood to call it a career.  It's not too surprising.  As often as I like to call the Flyers out for bad moves they should also be mentioned for good moves.  After the injury last season knowing full well recovery was going to be long and difficult the Flyers resigned Wellwood who was a free agent to a new contract for this season.  Even though he never got to play again he still got paid during his time of recovery.

Priceless/Vegas

If I name this the neutral zone I guess I should comment about the hot issues going on in the game.  I didn't see the Montreal game Saturday or any highlights.  I was only made aware of the Price injury when news broke that he was out for the series.  Soon after I saw that Chris Kreider's name started floating around.  Was it intentional or an accident?  By that night I had finally seen the video.

I love these plays.  If you root for New York it was a hockey play.  If you are a Montreal fan it was intentional.  Chris Kreider is the only person who knows.  We can all guess.  My initial reaction when I first heard Kreider ran into Price was that it was on purpose.  Kreider, as his career continues, is starting to get that reputation of being a bit reckless.  I'm usually surprised more players don't target opponents better players.  What's the worst that can happen?  You get suspended a game or two while the other team loses a star for the rest of the playoffs?  It's why the NHL never discloses injuries yet we should act surprised when something like this happens.  New York's chances of making it to the next round/Stanley Cup Finals increased immensely after this play regardless of if it was intentional or not.  Even if it was, Price isn't coming back.

To the actual play.  Kreider makes a good move to chip the puck past the defenseman then skates hard to get to it first.  The back checking Montreal player makes slight contact with Kreider right in front of Price.  Kreider falls and goes feet first into Price.  There are so many variables in the play that I'm not sure anybody can make a correct assumption.  Because of this I think Kreider used it to his advantage.  There was contact from behind so that could have caused him to stumble.  He did have a ton of speed coming head on at net.  He might have tried stopping and lost an edge.  I've also seen very few players fall feet first into a goalie.  Most players when falling also slide to the outside of the goal.

This play happened so fast I find it hard to believe Kreider had time to think about it.  I do believe he made up his mind he would crash the net and whatever happened happened.  That's where I leave it.  If you want to call that intentional then you can.

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Minor league hockey is a fickle beast.  San Francisco folded in the middle of the ECHL season.  That's bizarre.  Doors close and the season is over in one simple announcement.  Now Las Vegas finds themselves on the outside.  They announced today that they would not be playing next season.  The reason was simple.  They don't have a place to play.  Their lease was not renewed by the current facility, and they couldn't find another place.  Las Vegas has been playing since 2003 so it's not like they are new to hockey.  According to the team they will be back for 2015-2016.  Unfortunate for fans but at least a positive note that they do plan on coming back.  All the players become free agents.  I'm am Adam Huxley fan.  If he stays in the ECHL my guess is he stays on the west coast.  

My real question is what do they plan on doing for the playoffs.  When San Francisco folded it left 8 teams in the west.  Every team made the playoffs.  Now they lose another.  So I assume every team makes it again except they don't even have enough teams to fill the spots.  The only new team coming in next season will play in Indiana so I'm guessing they don't move to the west.