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CONTENTS Pre-season Results Free Agents Schedules Standings Statistics Transactions Injury Report Rosters Player Salaries Team Directory Television Stanley Cup Odds 
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AHL News by Tricia McMillan, AHL Correspondent
Player of the Week (Nov. 30): Steve Guolla won the award in the first week of the season and not long after he was called up to San Jose. In November, the Sharks sent Guolla back to the AHL and he picked up right where he left off, extending his scoring streak and picking up a second POTW for his performance the week after his streak ended. Guolla had a first-period hat trick against the Worcester IceCats and had another goal and three assists during three games that week. He also had three points against rivals Philadelphia as the T-Blades won in Philly for the first time ever. Player of the Week (Dec. 7): The Hamilton Bulldogs pulled off quite a trick when they signed holdout Phoenix defenseman Oleg Tverdovsky to a 25-game contract and Tverdovsky has been rewarded with the AHL Player of the Week. Tverdovsky had four goals (one game-winner) and two assists for six point in the Bulldogs' three games. Most of his heroics came against Fredericton in the form of a hat trick. Top runnerup (and for my money, the guy who should've won) was Portland's Andrew Brunette, with a nine-point week. Goaltender of the Month: The Philadelphia Phantoms' Neil Little has seen a lot of the Corestates Spectrum lately with Ron Hextall's injuries, but he probably prefers the old Spectrum. Certainly he does now, as Little went 5-1-0 in six games during November with a .925 save percentage and a 2.33 goals-against average to win the award. He ranks second in the league in wins, with eight.
Rookie of the Month: Marc Savard was the Player of the Week and now he has some more hardware to go with it. The Wolfpack rookie had a 22-point month, including eight goals, 14 assists and a hat trick in 13 games. Savard had a hand in five game-winning goals, either scoring or setting up, and wouldn't appear to be long for the AHL. Insurance Player of the Month: Savard's hardware parade didn't end there, as he and teammate Vladimir Vorobiev share the Insurance Player of the Month award. The two Hartford players each posted a +10 rating in November and Vorobiev earned himself a callup to the Rangers. Saint John Flames' winger Ladislav Kohn continues to lead the AHL in overall plus/minus, with a +14 rating, and Phantoms teammates Craig Darby and Mike Maneluk each played to a +8 to tie for second place. Bear Bait: Hershey's woes continue, especially on the road. The Bears have now lost ten straight road games, a franchise record. Considering this is their sixtieth year of existence, well...
Much of the problem comes from the injuries to the defensive corps. Steve Lingren broke his arm, Mike McHugh injured a knee, Dan Smith greeted a puck with his face and Christian Proulx injured his shoulder to join Wade Belak and Brian Corcoran on the sidelines. And Marc Denis has proved himself more human than superstar, with 11 straight losses. Things are bad. Gone International: The Olympic rosters named so far already include 43 former AHL players, one former AHL coach, one current AHL coach and three current AHL players. The former coach is Colorado's Marc Crawford, with Team Canada; the current coach is Albany's John Cunniff, who will assist Team USA. The three current players are Worcester's Robert Petrovicky, representing Slovakia; Syracuse's Tuomas Gronman, playing for Finland; and Hamilton's Alexander Zhurik, who will play for Belarus. Petrovicky and Zhurik will play provided their respective countries succeed in reaching Pool A status and appear in the actual Olympic tournament. Also going international is the Beast of New Haven's Oleg Kvasha, the only AHL player to date named to a World Junior team. The 19-year-old Panthers prospect will be taking the ice for the Russian team. Normally, players young enough to appear in the tournament are too young to play in the AHL, but exceptions happen.
Chart Toppers: So just how old (or young) are AHL players anyway? The league surveyed those players in the league around Thanksgiving time and found that the average AHL player is 22.8 years old, 6'.8" tall, and weighs in at 197.2 lbs. Subject, of course, to a wide variety of differences. As a team, the Rochester Americans are the resident old fogeys at 24 even while the baby Habs are babes indeed, at 21.4 years. The Worcester IceCats and the Beast of New Haven each average 6'1.5" in height, while the Hershey Bears and Portland Pirates are but 6'.3" tall. The Adirondack Red Wings are the resident heavyweights at 205.7 lbs, while the St. John's Maple Leafs may blow away at 193.3 lbs. Individually, well, truth be told, it isn't being told. The shortest player in the league is Portland goalie Mike O'Neill, listed at 5'7". Perhaps in his wildest dreams. O'Neill's hockey cards list him at 5'5", which is closer to reality. Hershey's Eric Veilleux, not listed, isn't 5'7" either. No arguments about the tallest player, as Zdeno Chara has this one easily at 6'9". The AHL's elder statesman is Rochester's Dan Frawley, at 35 years plus, while the youngest is St. John's Shawn Thornton, at 18 years old and frankly supposed to be in juniors right now. The heaviest player is Fredericton's Gerry Fleming, at an imposing 253 lbs, and the featherweight is Rochester's Martin Biron, just 154 lbs but fortunately stationed in the goal net. The whole story, by team:
AVG AVG AVG
TEAM AGE HT WT
Adirondack 22.4 6'1.2" 205.7
Albany 23.3 6'1.3" 199.9
Cincinnati 22.5 6'1.0" 195.5
Fredericton 21.4 6'0.5" 199.6
Hamilton 22.9 6'0.8" 194.2
Hartford 23.9 6'0.4" 195.9
Hershey 22.3 6'0.3" 197.7
Kentucky 22.2 6'1.3" 194.4
New Haven 21.9 6'1.5" 194.8
Philadelphia 23.6 6'1.0" 201.4
Portland 23.9 6'0.3" 199.0
Providence 23.4 6'1.1" 201.0
Rochester 24.0 6'0.5" 195.1
Saint John 22.2 6'1.2" 193.8
Springfield 23.0 6'0.7" 194.8
St. John's 22.8 6'1.0" 193.3
Syracuse 21.8 6'0.4" 195.4
Worcester 22.6 6'1.5" 196.7
Turnstiles: The AHL admitted more than 66,000 fans to games on November 28 alone, passing the one million mark in attendance on the earliest date ever. Four teams topped 7,000 in attendance that night, including Philadelphia which admitted 17,380 (Providence, Kentucky and Rochester were the others). Attendance is up ten percent already this season, with an average 5,369 fans each game. Philadelphia and Kentucky are both averaging over 8,000 a game, and Rochester, Hartford, Providence, Hershey, Worcester and Syracuse are all averaging over 5,000. How Much for the Goalie in the Window?: That's what the St. John's Maple Leafs and Portland Pirates were asking themselves December 6 in St. John's, as neither team had a backup goaltender. Portland's Mike O'Neill had suffered a groin pull two days earlier, pressing Martin Brochu back into service a little early from his own knee injury. The Pirates recalled Sebastien Charpentier from Hampton Roads, but then learned a hard truth about air travel into Newfoundland as Charpentier needed 14 hours to get there from Charlotte, NC. Meanwhile the Pirates dressed defenseman Kayle Short as a backup.
St. John's wasn't doing any better; a week after Marcel Cousineau was recalled by the parent Leafs, the baby Leafs still hadn't found a backup goaltender to Francis Larivee. They settled on 29-year-old Dennis Lake, who plays in a local semi-pro league, for this tilt. To make things even weirder, the game clock called it quits during the second intermission and the third period was played with an off-ice clock. Didn't matter, as it turned out, as the Maple Leafs defeated Portland for only the second time in 21 tries. The Leafs beat Brochu three times in the first period and held on for the 4-2 win. Then St. John's came back out the next night, scored three goals in the first period again, this time chasing Brochu as there was a backup available, and went on to defeat Portland 5-3, surviving 11 power plays and a 48-shot barrage by the Pirates. Finish With a Flourish: How many goals can you score in three minutes, 37 seconds? If you're the Worcester IceCats and Springfield Falcons, the answer is eight. When the Dec. 14 game between the two was at the 15:25 mark of the third period, the score was 5-0 Springfield. The final score was 8-5, Falcons and all three of the Falcons goals were empty- netters. The eight goals were scored in a span of 3:37, easily wiping out the old (as in 1939) record of 5:01 set by Hershey and Providence. Six goals were scored in 1:21, which not only broke the AHL record for quickest six goals - it beat the record for quickest five goals, which once had been 1:43. Three goals were scored in 20 seconds, and two of those were four seconds apart. While there have been several instances of goals five seconds apart, this was the first four-second gap. Springfield's Rob Murray scored the Falcons fifth goal at 16:13 in the second. Nobody scored again until 15:35 of the third, when the following happened: Worcester's Stephane Roy broke the shutout. Worcester's Ivan Ciernik scored again ten seconds later. The teams waited over two minutes to score again, when the IceCats' Derek Diener popped one in at 17:51. The Falcons' Shane Doan had the first of the empty-netters at 18:28, bringing the score to 6-3. Worcester's Shane Toporowski scored at 18:36. Doan scored a second empty-net goal at 18:52. Score now 7-4. Terry Hollinger brought the IceCats within two at 19:08. The Falcons' Richard Lintner scored into the empty net at 19:12. Final score 8-5. All done. Ye gads. Stupid Coach Tricks: St. John's and Fredericton locked up in a Dec. 9 tilt which featured more fights than goals - and there were five goals. A total of seven fights and 108 penalty minutes, but no misconducts. The next night, the same two teams went at it again. Shots were pretty even after two periods, 20-19, but then St. John's outshot Fredericton 18-4 in the third, tying the game in the process, and outshot the Habs 11-4 in OT, finishing with 49 shots to the Canadiens' 27. The game finished tied 3-3. Then the fun stuff started. While there weren't as many fights the second night as the first, one of the fights on Dec. 10 included Fredericton captain Brad Brown leaving the bench to become the third man in, both no-nos. In fact, the AHL has a little rule about leaving the bench to join a fight and Brown was suspended for two games. The Habs' rookie coach, Michel Therrien, went his captain several better. At the conclusion of the game, St. John's goaltender Francis Larivee skated past the Canadiens' bench and made a sarcastic comment to Therrien about the game's outcome. Therrien responded by spitting on Larivee, in front of the referee, no less. Therrien claimed Larivee had threatened him physically and verbally, but as the referee had a front row seat for this shenanigan the officials disagreed with his version of events and Therrien was given a gross misconduct by the ref and a three-game suspension by the AHL. (For the record, Therrien was Larivee's coach last season in Granby of the QMJHL and evidently the two of them really didn't care much for each other then either.) I Wanna Drive the Zamboni: Well, somebody got to - right down State Street in Syracuse. The Crunch's Dec. 7 matchup with Kentucky suffered from a lack of Zambonis, as the usual machine broke down on the ice just prior to the start of the game, delaying that start by 35 minutes. No problem, thought the Onondaga County gang, we'll use the backup. Uh, well, that Zamboni wasn't working either. The Crunch called a nearby ice rink and asked to borrow their Zamboni. And so, the people of Syracuse were much surprised to see a Zamboni chugging down one of the city's main drags, complete with a police escort. Now that's travelling in style. One Man Bands: After two complete months in the AHL season, there are four goaltenders who've held down the fort in 70% or better of their team's matchups. Norm Maracle is far in the lead, having appeared in 80% of the Red Wings games and leading the AHL in wins, minutes played and saves. Meanwhile, Zac Bierk, Maracle's backup, wasn't sure what a puck looked like until the Bears tossed 45 of them at him recently. Also topping the 70% marker are St. John's Marcel Cousineau (who has since been recalled), Albany's Peter Sidorkiewicz, and Portland's Mike O'Neill, now injured. O'Neill is the runnerup in the saves and minutes played category. Police Blotter: The Rochester Americans have opted not to take any action against Amerks Rumun Ndur and Dan Frawley, who were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in Cincinnati last week. Apparently Ndur and Frawley were waiting for a post-dinner taxi when police ordered them to leave; the players tried to tell the police they couldn't go anywhere without a cab and wound up being tackled and hauled to the police station. While the charges haven't been dropped yet, the players were released on their own recognizance and returned to Rochester. The Amerks organization feels the police were frustrated over a cop-killing incident earlier in the week and took it out on the players, consequently neither the team nor the league will act against the players.
Ace Sighting: Providence isn't much of a team, but Boston goaltender Jim Carey went a little overboard in refusing a conditioning stint there. Bad move on his part, as Carey proceeded to clear waivers and be assigned to Providence indefinitely. His first start for the P-Bruins began in less than pleasant fashion when he tried to clear the puck, but instead the biscuit ricocheted off several players and landed in front of wide-open Hershey Bear Brad Larson, who had no difficulty hitting the wide-open net. But Carey was otherwise showing the form he had during his first AHL stint in Portland with numerous spectacular stops, 34 saves total, and eventually the number one star designation. Carey undid any good will he might have received by blowing off the 80 or so fans waiting for him after the game, many of whom attended the game specifically to see him and several of those had travelled all the way from Providence. He didn't help his cause any the next night in Philadelphia either, as he again blew a clearing attempt, this one in overtime, and Chris Joseph took advantage for the game-winning goal. Carey finished his week in net as Providence was pasted, 6-1, by the IceCats. Reality Check: The Worcester IceCats have announced that team president Roy L.M. Boe is presently battling a gastrointestinal cancer. While treatment is expected to take several months, Boe's physicians say he should be able to make a full recovery and Boe is expected to be present for the team's Christmas party. The sixty-something Boe previously owned the ABA's New Jersey Nets (he also served as the ABA's president) and the NHL's New York Islanders before purchasing the then-defunct Springfield Indians AHL franchise and moving it to Worcester, Massachusetts. We all hope to see him at the Centrum again soon. (Turkey) Stuff(ing): Adirondack Red Wings goalie Zac Bierk was in net for an opening weekend win against Hershey. Norm Maracle has been in the net for every other point the team has gotten this season... Speaking of streaks, St. John's hasn't beaten Albany since 1993. That would be 12 games and counting... Hershey's Rob Shearer, Hartford's Marc Savard and Philadelphia's Peter White each have four-game winning goals to lead the league... Jeff Daniels returned from a stint in Carolina just in time to notch four points for the Beast of New Haven against Providence... Portland's 50 shots against Fredericton Dec. 11 tied a franchise record for shots in a regulation game, but the Pirates still didn't win... Hamilton had a second five-game winning streak come to end on Thanksgiving weekend. Only Hamilton has done that twice this year, although Hartford and Syracuse have also won five in a row...
The Rochester Americans' Dan Frawley recently played in his 400th game with the Amerks... Portland's Andrew Brunette and Kent Hulst each had three-point nights against Fredericton Dec. 4, but Canadien David Ling spoiled the party with a two-goal night and tied the game... Providence's John Varga, borrowed from the ECHL, may not be going back anytime soon. He had a four-point night against Hershey, while teammate Jean-Yves Roy had three of his own... The Amerks are the only AHL who haven't allowed an empty-net goal so far this season, despite pulling their goaltender five times. Neither Rochester nor the Hershey Bears have scored an empty-netter this year... The Cincinnati Mighty Ducks and the Worcester IceCats are both unbeaten and untied when leading after two periods, at 5-0 and 9-0 respectively. Cincinnati and the Hamilton Bulldogs have yet to win or tie after trailing through two periods, at 0-10 and 0-4... Best in division? Hamilton has ten wins within the Empire division. Best out of division? New Haven has ten wins against teams outside the New England division... The Hershey Bears have been the recipients of more power plays than any other team this season, but they giveth as well as taketh - the Bears have been stuck with 948 penalty minutes so far. Worcester ranks a distant second with 777... Now that the Guolla and Montgomery streaks are over, the two longest point streaks are both on the Hartford Wolf Pack, Christian Dube at 13 and Vladimir Vorobiev at eight. Vorobiev's is on hold as he's been recalled to New York again... Not to say that Worcester and Springfield don't care for each other, but the teams racked up 44 penalty minutes - in one overtime session... The Kentucky T-blades are celebrating the season with special-edition holiday jerseys for Dec. 5, 6 and 28, and the jersey will be auctioned off after the Dec. 28 game for charity. The sweaters feature mascot 'Lucky' with a tree and a star in hoof... The Portland Pirates were assessed penalty minutes in their November 28 tilt with New Haven, a franchise record... Shawn Bates was sent to Providence by the Bruins for some extra work and promptly scored his first professional hat trick against Saint John Flames. He also had an assist... Three teams have scored more than 90 goals so far this season: Fredericton, Philadelphia, and Hartford. If you're wondering how Fredericton can score so many goals and be low in the standings, four teams have given up more than 90 goals this season: Providence, Hershey, Syracuse - and Fredericton... Sean Haggerty hadn't scored a goal in 12 games, but had three assists on Dec. 6 and followed up with a hat trick against Syracuse Dec. 7. Larry Courville had two goals against the T-Blades, but the Crunch fell when Kentucky scored twice in the final two minutes... Special teams rule in Albany, where the River Rats lead the AHL in both power play and penalty killing. The Rats are currently clicking at 26.9% when a man up and 87.5% when a man down... The Wolfpack's Brad Smyth had a hat trick against Springfield Dec. 3. The tricks by Tverdovsky, Bates, Haggerty and Smyth bring the league season total up to 20, slightly ahead of the number at this point last season...
Jason Holland returned to the T-Blades with a vengeance, notching a goal and three assists against Rochester. Steve Guolla and Sean Haggerty had good nights too, with three points each... The Worcester IceCats, Springfield Falcons and Philadelphia Phantoms have yet to appear on either end of a shutout this season... The current AHL rookie scoring leader is Fredericton Canadien Eric Belanger, with 25 points, mostly on assists. Belanger isn't really a Canadien though - he belongs to Los Angeles... The Portland Pirates have already played an extra fifty minutes this year - ten overtime sessions and counting. They led the AHL in overtime last season too, with 24... Defenseman turned forward Sylvain Blouin had two goals, including the game-winner, in Hartford's 3-1 win over Springfield... As the worst offensive team in the league, the Rochester Americans need help. Buffalo sent it in the form of two first round draft picks, Jay McKee and Erik Rasmussen, both of whom need more ice time... Hnat Domenichelli already has eight multiple-goal games this year and Saint John won every one of them... The Philadelphia Phantoms outshot the Adirondack Red Wings 37-17. The Red Wings won the game, 2-1... Likewise, Albany outshot Syracuse 37-18, but lost the game 5-4 in overtime... Philadelphia outshot Hartford 42-22 and they did win, albeit needing OT to finish the task. The OT win for the Phantoms wasted a career night for Wolfpack defenseman Maxim Galanov, who registered his first ever two-point game... Syracuse blew a 3-1 lead in the third period against Worcester, allowing the IceCats to tie late in the third and win in OT. The two teams combined for 86 shots, 48 by Worcester... The Bulldogs bite down in the third period, allowing fewer goals in the final frame (19) than any other team in the league... Cincinnati, Providence and New Haven all have yet to win a game in overtime... Beginner's luck. Cincinnati signed center Ryan Black to a tryout contract and the kid scored a goal on his first ever AHL shift. It was the only goal the Ducks had in the game... On November 26, the St. John's Maple Leafs did something they've never done before - beat Springfield... Hamilton Bulldog winger Scott Fraser was awarded the season's fourth penalty shot against Cincinnati's Blaine Russell - in overtime! He didn't score, however... The AHL's least penalized team is the Adirondack Red Wings, with 405 minutes called against them in 27 games, or 15 PiMs per game...
Todd Hlushko suffered a concussion last season and missed eight months and the first 16 games of the season recovering from post-concussion syndrome. He's definitely recovered, as the Flames captain scored two goals against Kentucky and scored two short-handed goals 2:24 apart against St. John's... The Beast of New Haven and Worcester had an ugly tilt Dec. 13, in which New Haven received 45 minutes in penalties - on one play. That's a major, misconduct, gross misconduct, game misconduct and match penalty, all at once... Worcester and Springfield each have 12 players with ten or more points, Fredericton has 11 such players... Saint John was shut out for the first time this season and New Haven picked up their first ever shutout as the Beast closed out the Flames' road trip, 6-0. Saint John did get 101 penalty minutes, including four game misconducts, and the Beast had two ejections as well. New Haven was 3-10 on the power play and Craig Ferguson had a four-point night... The Phantoms are the league's best in overtime, with a 4-1-4 record so far... The Portland Pirates lead the league in shots on goal, with 973. Worcester and Albany have better shots per game averages than Portland though, with 35.2 per game... Providence Bruins defenseman Barry Richter scored two short- handed goals in two games Dec. 5 and 6, including a redline dump-in that eluded Hershey's Marc Denis... Hnat Domenichelli not only leads the league in goals scored, with 20 in 26 games, but the Saint John Flames center had better be leading in goals since he is by far the league leader in shots on goal, with 121 or nearly eight per game... The St. John's Maple Leafs are the only AHL team without a player over 20 points. Brandon Convery and Mark Deyell are close, each with 18, but no cigar yet... The Hartford Wolfpack are 11-0-1 in games where Daniel Goneau registers at least one point... Amerks defenseman Dean Melanson, who has scored nine goals in his four-year pro career, scored with 48 seconds remaining to give Rochester a victory over Cincinnati on Dec. 10... Former Pirate Eric Charron had two assists against his old team Dec. 10, as Saint John defeated Portland 3-1... Albany's Vadim Sharifjanov had a four-point night (one goal, three assists) in New Haven as the Rats knocked down the Beast 6-1... Ice cold: the Portland Pirates, who have lost six straight and are winless in their last seven. Red hot: the Pirates' Andrew Brunette, with a least one point in those seven games and a two- goal, two-assist performance in the team's most recent loss... Providence's Jean-Yves Roy was successful on a penalty shot against New Haven's Mike Fountain Dec. 14... New Haven's Peter Worrell has been suspended for three games after he shoved away a linesman who was escorting him to the penalty box... Overheard: After a Dec. 14 matchup between the Adirondack Red Wings and Hershey Bears featuring the first Hershey appearance of the Wings' hulking defenseman Maxim Kuznetsov, a distinctly chilly breeze was travelling through the lower levels of the Hersheypark Arena. One wag announced he was "freezing my Kuznetsov."
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