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AHL News by Tricia McMillan, AHL Correspondent Player of the Week (Dec. 13): The Vancouver Canucks thought he needed more seasoning, so they sent top prospect Josh Holden back to Syracuse. Holden started campaigning for a trip back to the Pacific with his performance last week, picking up six points in three games to include a natural hat trick against Lowell. The former first rounder has played decently so far, especially considering he's coming back from a severe wrist injury.
Player of the Week (Dec. 20): The resurgent River Rats finally landed a winner, as Jiri Bicek won the award. Bicek, who turned 20 just days ago, scored both a game-tying and a game-winning goal in Albany's two games during the week and added three assists to his totals. Bicek also raised his plus/minus rating to +15, good for fourth in the league. Hear Them Roar: It took a year longer than expected, but the Louisville Panthers have finally officially come into existence. The finalization of the franchise's ten year lease with the 17,000+ seat Freedom Hall was completed Dec. 17 and the team will join the AHL effective next season. They'll have plenty of company, since Scranton/Wilkes-Barre also joins up, Hampton Roads is supposed to come on board, and the Ottawa Senators are making serious sounds of bringing Quebec City in next year too. Wow - four new teams in one year. And a fifth new city - an unnamed team, more than likely Fredericton, intends to move next season. The Louisville team is affiliated with, duh, Florida, and become the eighth AHL team with ownership interest from the parent NHL club. How much do you know about the AHL? Try naming the other seven teams who are owned by the/a parent club. Answer at the end.
Don't Believe The Numbers: Because half the time they're attributed to the wrong players. The AHL has long had problems with errors in the box scores and game writeups, primarily mistakes of granting points and/or penalties to players who often weren't playing in the game and sometimes weren't even on the roster. While some of these mistakes are confined to a single game, some have continued for entire seasons. The current running errors involve Albany's Jeff Williams and New Haven's Shane Willis, who sit atop the AHL scoring lists but you wouldn't know it since their points are routinely given to Henry Kuster and Jon Sturgis, both playing in the ECHL. The errors continue despite several complaints made by Willis and New Haven to the league (one assumes Williams has said something as well). Maybe making a mistake in one game could be understood, but making the same mistake over and over for weeks at a time is ridiculous at best, confusing to the fans, and unfair to the players, especially standout players like Williams and Willis. All Star Doings: The captains for the respective All-Star teams were named, with one surprise (to me, anyway) - the captain of the Canadian team will be Philadelphia's Peter White. Did anybody else think the job was going to Mitch Lamoureux? The PlanetUSA team will be captained by Hartford's Ken Gernander, a Minnesotan. The teams will also have honorary captains, with Canada receiving former NHL coach Bill Dineen, who won consecutive Coach of the Year awards during his days in the AHL, and PlanetUSA hosting recently retired Joel Otto, who was actually a scoring threat when he was in the AHL, prior to becoming a premier checking forward. Last but not least, the AHL continues with its day-of-game Hall of Fame Luncheon, this time honoring Phantoms and Canada coach Bill Barber and Flyers owner Ed Snider. Snider is responsible for the Flyers, the Phantoms, a cable network empire and the two sports arenas in Philadelphia, and has been named to the Hall as a 'Builder'. Barber, of course, is in the Hall for his playing exploits with the Flyers. The PlanetUSA coach was to be whichever coach (other than Bill Barber) whose team had the best winning percentage as of Dec. 13. Son of a gun, it came down to the last game. Rochester's Brian McCutcheon and Albany's John Cunniff finished up whiskers apart, but Cunniff took the final nod when Albany defeated Adirondack on Dec. 13. While the teams had the same win-loss record, Rochester had played one more game (a tie) than had Albany, so the job is Cunniff's. And by the way, voting for AHL All-Stars continues. And certain teams/venues are doing a better job of getting out the vote than others. So if you don't like this list of the voting leaders, results as of Dec. 15, don't just stand there, vote. Canadian AHL All-Stars Forwards Bob Wren, Cincinnati Mighty Ducks Eric Landry, Saint John Flames Jim Montgomery, Philadelphia Phantoms Shane Willis, Beast of New Haven Jean-Pierre Dumont, Portland Pirates Cameron Mann, Providence Bruins Jeff Williams, Albany River Rats Defense Andy Delmore, Philadelphia Phantoms Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre, Rochester Americans Ken Sutton, Albany River Rats Brad Tiley, Springfield Falcons Goalies Martin Biron, Rochester Americans Jean-Sebastien Giguere, Saint John Flames Jean-Francois Labbe, Hartford Wolf Pack PlanetUSA AHL All-Stars Forwards Landon Wilson, Providence Bruins Frederik Lindquist, Hamilton Bulldogs Richard Park, Philadelphia Phantoms Andrej Podkonicky, Worcester IceCats Ladislav Kohn, St. John's Maple Leafs Boris Protsenko, Syracuse Crunch Herbert Vasiljevs, Kentucky Thoroughblades Defense Rich Brennan, Hartford Wolf Pack Chris O'Sullivan, Saint John Flames Zdeno Chara, Lowell Lock Monsters Francis Bouillon, Fredericton Canadiens Goalies Tom Askey, Cincinnati Mighty Ducks Jean-Marc Pelletier, Philadelphia Phantoms Jim Carey, Providence Bruins All Those Zeros: The shutout parade continues, as Martin Biron leads the pack with his fourth shutout in 18 games and ninth in barely a year. The record for a season is nine, well within Biron's reach. The shutout count now stands at 36, already better than halfway to the AHL's record for a season of 61. The AHL has already started charting who shutout or was shutout by whom. St. John's is the only team which has not been involved in a shutout in either direction, while Hartford is the only team which has yet to record one. Team SOF SOA Adirondack 1 3 Albany 1 1 Cincinnati 1 4 Fredericton 2 2 Hamilton 2 4 Hartford 0 1 Hershey 3 1 Kentucky 4 0 Lowell 2 2 New Haven 2 4 Philadelphia 2 2 Portland 2 4 Providence 4 0 Rochester 4 1 Saint John 1 1 Springfield 1 1 St. John's 0 0 Syracuse 1 4 Worcester 3 1 Tough Call:Saint John has had more than its share of problems on the blue line, with Steve Bancroft wanting out and neither David Cooper nor Eric Charron playing up to par. But nobody could have predicted the latest strike - team scoring leader Chris O'Sullivan briefly walked off the team after one of his best friends was murdered. The Flames had granted O'Sullivan personal time for family and the funeral, but he was due back to the team for its Dec. 11 game and he didn't show or call. The Flames were finally able to reach him later in the weekend and talked him into returning to the team the following week. Tough Weekend Upstate: Things weren't any better in upstate New York on Dec. 19. New Haven's Dwayne Hay fell into the boards headfirst during a game with Syracuse, leading many to think he'd broken his neck. Hay suffered a sprained neck and back and should be back in the lineup after the holidays. Meanwhile Rochester tried to go home after a game in Albany, but didn't quite make it back to the arena after a car ran a red light and slammed into their bus. Head coach Brian McCutcheon broke a couple ribs and damaged a lung, but otherwise the Amerks were unscathed. The car's occupants, who according to reports were underaged and quite intoxicated, were injured, at least one seriously, and also face criminal charges. Sound Bites: Kentucky won consecutive games on the road for the first time in franchise history Dec. 8, edging Adirondack 2-1... The Hartford Wolfpack threw 56 shots at Fredericton's Phillippe Derouville Dec. 8, but only three got through, including Vladimir Vorobiev's game-tying goal with 4.7 seconds left in regulation. The game finished in a 3-3 tie.... 12 teams in the AHL have a winning record at home. The River Rats, on the other hand, are much better on the road, and the Phantoms and IceCats also have winning road records... You might not have noticed - Providence rookie Andre Savage is averaging just under a point a game for the Bruins and leads all rookies in +/-... Syracuse's Boris Protsenko leads the rookies in goalscoring, New Haven's Shane Willis is tops in assists and overall scoring for newcomers... The Beast of New Haven scored at least one power play goal in 11 straight games, then failed to score one in two of three games. Both games were shutouts... The Providence Bruins were the first AHL team to compile 100 goals this season. They sent a thank-you note to Syracuse... By the way, the P-Bruins are a perfect 8-0 on Friday nights... The Phantoms have lost four games this season. They lost two of them to the Springfield Falcons, but won't face them again this season. Robert Esche beat Jean-Marc Pelletier in both games - the two shared goaltending duties for the U.S. World Junior team... Brent Johnson set a franchise record when he started his 13th straight game for the IceCats. Worcester really didn't have a second goalie for the first 12 of those games... The AHL's leading goalscorer for defensemen is Fredericton's Francis Bouillon, with eight. He has joined Chris O'Sullivan as the only blueliners leading their teams in scoring... Lowell is having their problems lately. Not only are they getting outshot, they're getting outshot by double digits in almost every game... The Phantoms lead the AHL in shorthanded goals with 11. Saint John is second, but they only have six... St. John's has appeared in five overtime games, most in the league, and haven't lost one yet. Surprising - they've lost pretty much every other game... Cincinnati's Mike Leclerc had four goals against Albany Dec. 4... The Bears don't score for Marc Denis, but they do for David Aebischer who picked up his second shutout Dec. 6 over New Haven, stopping 32 shots... Big surprise here - the Phantoms reached the one million mark in attendance earlier than any team in league history, reaching the number Dec. 6...
Albany's Jeff Williams surpassed his career high in goals (13) by the time he got to December. He now has 18, tied for the AHL lead with Providence's Landon Wilson... Rochester managed to get as far as Dec. 5 before they lost a game at home. Hamilton did the honors... Tim Keyes played for just the third time this season Dec. 5 against Hershey, shutting out the Bears for 50 minutes and picking up the first Crunch win without Craig Hillier in net... Jeff Williams extended his goal-scoring streak to six games as Albany trounced Syracuse, 7-2, Dec. 9... After losing four games at home all season, the Phantoms lost two in a row. Rochester took the first meeting of the divisional leaders 3-1 as Dean Sylvester scored two and set up the third Amerk goal. Martin Biron made 30 saves as the Amerks were outshot 31- 16... Lots of first when Hershey and Cincinnati hooked up Dec. 9. Hershey's Brian Willsie scored his first professional goal, and newcomers Lindsay Vallis and Brent Gretzky scored their first AHL goals in years as the Bears won 5-3 for their first win in division all season...
Adirondack's Jon Coleman scored 27 seconds into overtime to give the Wings a 6-5 win over Saint John Dec. 10. It was Coleman's second goal and fifth point of the night. Phil Audet also had a four point night, while the Flames' Martin St. Louis had three points in his first night back... Portland and Fredericton appeared headed for overtime when Steve Tardif scored the game-winner with just 12 seconds left in regulation time to give the Pirates a 3-2 win Dec. 10... Hamilton's Jim Dowd tied the game with 15 seconds left, then Hartford completed their collapse by allowing Jeff Daw to score the OT winner for a 4-3 Bulldogs win Dec.11. The goal was Daw's third point of the game... Brian Willsie liked scoring his first pro goal so much he scored two more. But Kentucky still beat Hershey 3-2, with Andrei Zyuzin setting up all three T-Blade goals Dec. 11. The T-Blades also had numerous charity promotions going on, some pretty morbid (selling eyes?)... The game was the first at Kentucky since the now-infamous brawl between the two teams. Kentucky gave out Garrett Burnett masks (countering Hershey's Scott Parker masks) but Burnett wasn't in the game - he'd been suspended for three games due to antics in a fight against Hamilton. Parker was in the NHL... Rochester hadn't lost at home all season, then lost for the second time in a week to fellow division leaders Lowell Dec. 11... Philadelphia lost an in-division game for the first time this season, dropping a 3-2 game to Cincinnati on Dec. 11... Shane Willis scored two more goals (credited to Sturgis) and Mike Fountain took over fifth place in all-time AHL wins as the Beast knocked over Portland, 3-1. Marcus Nilson scored the game-winner, his first North American goal... The next night, Dwayne Hay scored a pair and had an assist as the Beast topped Worcester, 5-3. Steve Washburn, on a conditioning assignment, also scored two... When Hartford and Springfield tied Dec. 12, it was the Wolfpack's third straight overtime game, and their fourth trip to OT in five games... Syracuse's Josh Holden had a hat trick against Lowell Dec. 12, while Peter Schaefer set up four goals... Brian Willsie still likes this scoring thing, tying the Bears' Dec. 12 tilt with Cincinnati late in the third period. The game stayed at 2-2... Providence's Jim Carey took on his former team, Portland, and got pasted 5-1. Kent Hulst and Jean-Pierre Dumont had a pair of goals each... Martin Biron recorded yet another shutout Dec. 12 against Hamilton. The Bulldogs have faced Biron four times this year, and have been blanked in three of those games... The Amerks' team GAA is 2.04, while the league average is 3.07. No team is even close to the Amerks' number... St. John's Greg Smyth won't play again until Dec. 29 because of his ten game suspension. It was his fourteenth suspension, by far the most of any player who ever played in the AHL. Smyth has sat for 56 games in those suspensions... Whose stupid idea was it to give the refs ejection power over the off-ice officials? Referee Scott Zelkin tossed Rochester coach Brian McCutcheon from the Amerks' Dec. 11 game, then informed the PA announcer he'd also be canned if he announced the penalty to McCutcheon... Hamilton's Sergei Yerkovich scored his first AHL goal against Lowell Dec. 13, but the teams settled for a 2-2 tie, as did Cincinnati and Hershey, for the second night in a row.... Providence is stumbling, as evidenced by Fredericton's 7-5 win over the P-Bruins. Eric Houde and Stephane Robidas had two goals each, while Francis Boullion had a four point night. Landon Wilson and Cameron Mann also had two goals each, to no avail... Kentucky and Philadelphia had a rough game Dec. 13, with both teams losing their captains. T-Blade Jarrett Deuling's face was carved up by Phantom Ryan Bast, who was suspended two games for his stick work. Phantom captain John Stevens was hit in the face by a puck and was still in the hospital four days later. He won't play for at least two months and may retire... New Haven's Mike Fountain celebrated moving up on the AHL win column with a shutout against Hartford Dec. 13... Jeff Williams continues to go nuts, racking up two goals and two assists against Adirondack Dec. 13 to take the AHL lead in goals with 18. Frederic Henry stopped 41 shots and was less than eight minutes from a shutout, but settled for a 6-1 win... The Hershey Bears offered Brent Gretzky a contract for the rest of the season...and he turned it down to stay in the United Hockey League. Go figure... The Providence Bruins were the lowest scoring team in the league last year, but are leading the pack by a large margin this season. If they finish as the highest scoring team, they would be only the fourth team to go worst to first and the first one to do it since 1956... Hartford's J.F. Labbe has double digit wins, but isn't even in the top 20 goaltenders for GAA... Providence's Cameron Mann ran up a 12 game consecutive point streak... Springfield, Portland and Cincinnati all have yet to score shorthanded... Is Fredericton having trouble scoring? Not only are they led in scoring by a defenseman, but Eric Houde is second on the team in scoring and he's missed 11 games while in the NHL... Portland got their defensive mojo working and haven't allowed more than three goals in a game for 12 straight games... How about that Martin St. Louis? He has 19 points...in ten games... St. John's is nowhere near the top in goal scoring, but they have the top two players in shots taken - Lonny Bohonos and Jason Podollan... Of the seven OT games played by Hershey this season, all seven stayed tied... The Philadelphia Phantoms lost three consecutive games for the first time in franchise history... Albany is pretty good in division, having lost once in 11 games... Rochester need not bother playing the third period. The Amerks are 16-0 with a lead after two periods and 0-5 when trailing after two...
This season has not been one Mike Gaul wants to remember. And Ted Crowley was turning into a Hershey goat. So Colorado and the Islanders swapped them for each other, bringing Gaul back to Hershey where he earned All-Star honors last season and sending Crowley to Lowell... And Gaul didn't wait to make an impression, picking up three assists as the Bears beat Cincinnati 5-2 Dec. 16. Nick Bootland scored his first pro goal and Christian Matte picked up a pair in his return from the NHL... Kentucky's Sean Gauthier recorded 23 saves for his first shutout in the AHL, and picked a good team to do it against, as Kentucky defeated Philadelphia for the first time this season Dec. 16, 6-0. Mark Smith and Matt Bradley had three points each, but the T- Blades lost Christian Gosselin for the season with a torn ACL... Hamilton's Steve Passmore also recorded a zero that night, stopping 29 shots from the Adirondack Red Wings while the Bulldogs scored five... St. John's put out a call for reinforcements and found two retired NHLers for their lineup - Jeff Reese, who won't join the team until after Christmas, and Yuri Khymylev... Khymylev scored the game-winning goal in his first game for the Leafs, a win over Worcester on Dec. 16 which also saw Brad Chartrand score his first professional goal, shorthanded... Yikes. The Battle of New Brunswick Dec. 17 was a romp for Fredericton, as Mathieu Garon picked up his second shutout and the Canadiens generally went nuts on Saint John, 8-0. Flames' blueliner David Cooper was a whopping -7 for the game... Hartford's Alexei Vasiliev scored his first goal this side of the Atlantic and it was an OT game-winner, giving the Wolfpack the edge over St. John's Dec. 18... Hamilton's Jeff Daw picked up his second goal of the game against Providence Dec. 18 at an opportune time - with one second left in overtime. The Bulldogs thus won 3-2... Ken Sutton had a four point game for Albany, but Springfield's Tavis Hansen scored in overtime for a Falcons 6-5 win... Do I sound like a repeating record? Igor Nikulin scored in overtime giving Cincinnati a 4-3 win over Syracuse Dec. 18. All in all, four games went into overtime that night and all four were decided. Note to the NHL - try it the AHL's (tiebreaking) way for a while... Worcester decided to give Syracuse a run for its inexperienced money, icing a lineup Dec. 18 against New Haven in which Kevin Sawyer, at 24, was the oldest player on the team. It was the first game in IceCats history in which no veteran dressed for the game... Fredericton did it to Saint John again, 6-3, Dec. 18, Francis Bouillon, Miroslav Guren and Eric Houde all with two goals... Kentucky's Matt Bradley has scored two game-winning goals in his pro career - both in 2-1 wins over Hershey. This time it was in OT... The game was sold out - as in 8,103 - in Hershey. The building's capacity is only about 7,400. The extras stood on the concourse... Adirondack defeated Cincinnati, 4-2, on Dec. 19 for their first consecutive wins since the first two games of the season... Shane Willis picked up two more goals and an assist, and Mike Fountain had a 25 save shutout against Syracuse... Rochester and Albany were tied for first place in the Empire Division, until Albany won 4-3 Dec. 19. Jiri Bicek scored the game-winner... Lowell borrowed ECHL POTW Bret Meyers from Columbus just in time for him to score the game-winner against Hamilton... Matt Herr was sent back to Portland, but couldn't report - his wallet was stolen during the Capitals' Las Vegas junket and he had no ID to get on a plane... Fredericton tossed only 16 shots at Hartford in a Dec. 20 visit to Molson Centre and wasted an appearance by Jose Theodore in a 4-1 loss... Springfield's Trevor Letowski had a three point night, including the game-winning goal, against New Haven Dec. 20... When Falcon Barry Nieckar scored against Mike Fountain in that game, it was the first goal given up by Fountain in 144 minutes, 22 seconds. Fountain was coming off of consecutive shutouts... A day after a spectacular performance against Hershey, Kentucky's John Nabokov recorded a 22 save shutout against Rochester for his third zero of the year. Nabokov stopped 50 of 51 shots in two games... Philadelphia's Richard Park and Peter White had two goals each and Mark Greig had a four point night as the Phantoms squelched Cincinnati 8-2 on Dec. 20... Answer: The other teams owned by parent NHL clubs are Adirondack, Fredericton, Hamilton, Hartford, Philadelphia, St. John's, and Wilkes-Barre Scranton.
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