Cuts and things and and Mahbod gets a new home.

Let's divide this by league, shall we...

ECHL:

The Alaska Aces have signed forwards Shawn Skelly and Samson Mahbod (pronounced muh-BAWD) and defenseman Mike Baran (pronounced BARE-uhn), Alaska Aces Head Coach Rob Murray announced on Friday. The additions are much needed for the shorthanded Aces, who prior to these signings were down to 12 active skaters for Friday. All three players have met the Aces on the road, and are expected to be in the lineup on Friday night. The Aces begin a three-game road trip on Friday night against the Idaho Steelheads at 5:10pm AKT [...]

Mahbod, 23, is set to make his season debut with the Aces this weekend in Idaho. This is the third pro season for the 5'10", 171lbs. forward. He spent his rookie season in the ECHL and last year played for the Arizona Sundogs in the Central Hockey League. Following a junior career split between the QMJHL and the QJAHL the Montreal, Quebec native played for four different ECHL teams as a rookie. He had a combined 26 points (10g, 16a) in 47 regular season games with the Elmira Jackals, South Carolina Stingrays, and Cincinnati Cyclones. He also played in six playoff games with the Utah Grizzlies, tallying one goal. Last year with the Sundogs, Mahbod totaled 22 points (7g, 15a) in 43 games in an injury-shortened season. This season Mahbod took training camp with the Orlando Solar Bears, but was released prior to the start of the season. In major junior hockey, Mahbod had 168 points (57g, 111a) in 164 games for four different clubs. He finished his junior career with two tremendous seasons in the QMJHL, combining for 50 goals, 93 assists and 143 points in 118 games. In 2009 as a member of the Drummondville Voltigeurs, Mahbod had 13 points (5g, 8a) in 19 games, while helping Drummondville to their first ever QMJHL Championship. Mahbod recorded an assist in a 3-2 win during Game 7 of the Finals. He also scored in the Semifinals of the Memorial Cup in an eventual 3-2 overtime loss.

Not entirely sure I'm down with that pronunciation  and I really didn't need to read that last sentence (or the last part of the last sentence) but I digress.

NHL: After I let some terrifying waiver-claim nightmare scenarios dance around in my brain yesterday, Frédéric St-Denis was allowed to go back to Hamilton in the end. After last night's scrimmage, Gabriel Dumont will join him. Mike Hoffman was sent back to Binghamton while Guillaume Latendresse's new number is 73. Meanwhile, Dmitry Kulikov signed a new deal with Florida. Official rosters are due to be set this afternoon at 5:00 p.m....

AHL: With a depleted Hamilton lineup, Philippe Lefebvre was able to score his first goal of the season against Abbotsford. The Bulldogs lost in the shootout 2-1, however.

CIS: At their carnival game that by all accounts was a packed house, McGill beat UQTR 4-2 on Wednesday. Here is what that scoresheet looked like:

SCORING SUMMARY
-- 1st --
McGill	14:55	PP - David Rose (Jean-Philippe Mathieu & Marc-Olivier Vachon)
McGill	15:41	PP - Guillaume Monast (Hugo Laporte & Chris Longpre-Poirier)
-- 2nd --
UQTR	9:18	Tommy Tremblay (Pierre-Luc Lessard & Antoine Quevillon)
UQTR	15:48	Emmanuel Boudreau (Olivier Donovan & Marc-Olivier Mimar)
-- 3rd --
McGill	0:32	Marc-Olivier Vachon (David Rose & Benoit Levesque)
McGill	18:50	EN - Max Le Sieur (Jean-Philippe Mathieu & Benoit Levesque)

Their next game is tonight at 7 p.m. against Ottawa and will be webcast live on www.ssncanada.ca/games/ .

Meanwhile, on the same night, UNB plastered St. Thomas 7-0. Marc-Antoine Desnoyers recorded two assists and a team-high 7 shots on goal.

In regular news, Drummondville still hasn't played that game against Rimouski yet. Get to it already.

Happy New Year (and all that jazz)

Alum-stuff to start: Have a sick shootout goal to kick off 2013...



Also:

• The McGill Redmen start up again tonight in their first game after the Christmas break against Carleton.
• You may or may not have already heard about this epic night. The Bulldogs as a whole have mustered 1000% less offense since.
• Scott Howes has a new AHL tryout contract, this time with Springfield. His first game? Against his old squad, Bridgeport. Ha.

Current edition Voltigeurs now: Lukas Balmelli is currently playing for Team Switzerland in order to determine who gets 5th place at the World Juniors, the Swiss or the Czechs. Balmelli has been credited with a goal, an assist, 11 shots on goal and a +3 thus far in the tournament.

Back home, the Voltigeurs are now in eighth place in the league after having won five straight and eight of their last ten. As per Yannick Rochette of NRJ, newcomer Cole Hawes is set to make his debut on Sunday against the Drakkar when they make their way to the Centre Marcel Dionne, alongside Verrier and Gauthier. Hawes was previously injured (incidentally in a game opposing his old team and his new team). The Drakkar have a similar streak going (4 wins in a row) and are currently second in their division behind the Rimouski Oceanic, and sitting in fourth place overall.

CIS update

Things Journal l'Express can do better than I can: Assemble proper lists of alumni that are currently playing in the CIS. You already know about the (fab?) five at McGill and that Nadeau, Donovan and Hotte are at UQTR (read an article en français about Hotte, here). But also:

Elsewhere in Canada, there are Michael Santini and Mackenzie Micks (York), Jean-Sébastien Fournier (Ottawa), Sébastien Payette, Olivier Jannard and Corey Garland (Concordia), Alex Emond, Pier-Antoine Dion and Rémi Blanchard (Moncton), Marc-Antoine Desnoyers (UNB), Mike MacIsaac (UPEI) as well as Sébastien Bernier (St Thomas).

Then there's this bit of news:

McGill alone have five [...] without counting the fact that Dany Massé will be part of this team next year.

If Riendeau weren't sort of in the middle of a four-game point streak for Stockton of the ECHL......anyway. A girl can dream.

Just say Blainbriand.

Armada, meet thy ballbusters: Well, that's a headline that is sure to bite me where it hurts in a future game, but these two pretty boxscores can stand alone in this post and I don't have to feel guilty just yet:

GOALS	1	2	3	OT	Total
BLAINVILLE-BOISBRIAND	2	2	2	0	6
DRUMMONDVILLE	3	2	1	1	7

GOALS	1	2	3	Total
DRUMMONDVILLE	1	2	0	3
BLAINVILLE-BOISBRIAND	0	2	0	2

So pretty.

Drummondville (Sunday): Weber, Balmelli, Archambault, Gauthier, Malouin, Verrier (2). Murray and Brouillard the forward with two assists each.
Blainbriand (Sunday): Paquette (3), Hodhod, Clapperton, Sanche.

Drummondville (yesterday): Boudens, Caouette, Verrier.
Blainbriand (yesterday): Sanche, Giroux.

Last night, aside from watching Sportsnet scramble for material with Ouellet sitting this game out on the sidelines, I enjoyed the talents of the budding hockey analyst that is the Montreal Canadiens' P.K. Subban. He had (really) good insight, predicted a number of things before they happened, and Nikolas Brouillard even got praise for his "Subbie-doo" spin-o-rama at the blueline. Now if only P.K. could head over to the MATV studios (formerly VOX) that is apparently broadcasting the Gatineau game on Friday...

Things that actually happened in the game (or before): Jérémie Malouin gets the C on his jersey for the rest of the season (Charles-David Beaudoin with the A), Matt Boudens has this wicked point streak with all these goals scattered everywhere (five games now), the jury is still out on Guindon's super-hero nickname (37 saves plus cool, calm collectedness in the face of never-ending 5 on 3's), it turns out Balmelli can hold his own in a fight?!, a Drummondville player is finally in the league's top-20 in scoring (Verrier) who has recorded at least a point in the last seven games, and the Volts are unbeaten in regulation in their last five games. They are also 7-2-0-1 in their last ten games.

Next: Gatineau. They were also in action last night and lost to Baie-Comeau, 6-3.

Next next: Québec, Sherbrooke, Baie-Comeau, Gatineau again, Sherbrooke in Sherbrooke, and then holiday time.

Alumni news and notes: Some people are already thinking about holiday time!

The McGill Redmen had an interesting Movember campaign (kinda NSFW, actually), and picked up wins against Ryerson and RMC this weekend. Ex-Volts aplenty in the latter game's scoresheet. They now break for the holidays and will be back to host Carleton on January 4th, 2013.

Otherwise, this week is full of zZzZz's, aside from the fact that already six days ago Mike Hoffman picked up a goal and two assists, whereas his opponent and former teammate Sean Couturier got an assist, a -2, and eight shots on net. Binghamton had the upper hand in this game over Adirondack, 7-4.

Roundup time!

Friday:

GOALS	1	2	3	Total
DRUMMONDVILLE	2	3	0	5
RIMOUSKI	3	1	3	7

Drummondville: Malouin (2), Boudens, Verrier (2).
Rimouski: Beauvillier, Gauthier, DeLuca, Loiseau (2), Oke, Légaré.

Guindon made 22 saves. Meanwhile, Graham moved off the bench entirely (still bothered by an injury) and Kevin Darveau took the backup spot.

Yesterday:

GOALS 1 2 3 Total DRUMMONDVILLE 1 0 4 5 VICTORIAVILLE 2 0 0 2

Victoriaville: Diaby, Halley.Drummondville: Brouillard the younger, Malouin, Verrier (2), Boudens. Caouette picked up two assists.

Twenty-seven stops made by Guindon this time.

Let's be honest, I literally missed this entire weekend (I feel like yesterday was Friday). You probably know more about these games than I do.

One thing I do know: PEI tomorrow!

PEI: 13-9-2-0, 28 points, 11th in the league, 97 GF, 88 GA, lost seven of their last ten, and the Ben Duffy/Josh Currie duo takes up two-thirds of the top 3 in league scoring (Grigo butted in the middle). Their netminder, Antoine Bibeau, has a GAA that is fourth-best in the league, 2.68, with a .915 SV%.

Drummondville: 14-12-0-0, 28 points, 9th in the league, 84 GF, 91 GA, are now up to W's in five of their last seven games, Verrier is on a tear with four goals in his last two, and Guindon has an 3.33 GAA and .870 SV%.

Head-to-head: Drummondville won both games against the team that will soon be formerly known as the Rocket, 4-2 over a year ago on November 2nd and 4-3 in overtime, two October 16ths ago. The winning goal at that time was scored by Max Villemaire.

Speaking of which: How is that guy doing, you might ask? One might expect the following stat to stand out: PIM. He has only played 5 games for Gwinnett (currently on reserve) and already has 22 minutes spent in that sin-bin.

Sean Couturier scored two goals this weekend and Charles Landry was finally called up to Syracuse only to be AWOL from the statsheet, probably having to settle for just watching the Crunch (and Ondrej Palat) beat both Mike Hoffman's Senators and Raman Hrabarenka's Devils before going on to thump the Worcester Sharks 6-1. Other notables: the only Bulldogs' goal to be scored yesterday was assisted by Gabriel Dumont, Yannick Riendeau scored and added an assist in a 6-3 Stockton win over Bakersfield, both Ryan McKiernan and Marc-Olivier Vachon (from McKiernan and Jonathan Brunelle, no less) scored in a 3-2 shootout win over Toronto, and Rémi Blanchard scored both goals in a 6-2 losing cause to Marc-Antoine Desnoyers (4 assists) and the UNB Varsity Reds yesterday.

Black (and red) Friday

Whoa! Where the hell have I been?

Here, for one. Have some teaser shots from the game (not for stealing purposes, obviously):

The rest can be found over at All Habs.

Two nights previous:

GOALS	1	2	3	Total
DRUMMONDVILLE	1	0	2	3
BLAINVILLE-BOISBRIAND	1	2	3	6

Drummondville: Archambault (2), Auger.
Blainbriand: Clapperton, Martel (2), Sanche, Roy (2).

This game also featured the loss of Domenic Graham to an undisclosed lower-body injury. (This goalie drama is starting to look a little too Montreal Canadiens to me, especially every time someone quotes Duhamel as saying there is no superior. Okay then.)

The night before that, Drummondville seemed to take into account my warning message about Gatineau. (Just kidding, my mom doesn't even read this blog.)

GOALS	1	2	3	Total
GATINEAU	0	2	0	2
DRUMMONDVILLE	2	1	2	5

Sixty percent of the Volts' goals were scored on the power play, but I won't disclose the amount of power plays they actually had, just to make it look better. Boom.

Drummondville: Malouin, Gauthier, Archambault (2), Brouillard the elder.
Gatineau: Burke, Chapman.

And now for tonight:

Rimouski: 13-8-1-3, 30 points, 5th in the league, 84 GF, 86 GA, have a one-game winning streak just like Drummondville, and Peter Trainor and Scott Oke (city) each have over 30 points this year. Meanwhile, Carl Hozjan has a GAA of 2.83 with a .911 SV% as his counterpart Philippe Desrosiers has a 3.34 GAA with a .902 SV%.

Drummondville: 13-11-0-0, 26 points, 9th in the league, 74 GF, 82 GA, have won four of their last five games, Verrier has taken the lead in points with 29 in 24 games (Brouillard the elder is suffering from a concussion), and Guindon's stats are now 3.14 GAA and .874 SV%.

Around the league: So Quebec decided to quit hogging three Euros and traded one...for another Euro.

2012-11-21	Rouyn-Noranda	Québec	Kamaev, Denis (1994-03-06)	Rd_2, 2013 (Chi)
	Québec	Rouyn-Noranda	Kucherov, Nikita (1993-06-17)

But there is a method to their madness. Sometimes.

2012-11-21	Québec	Sherbrooke	Kamaev, Denis (1994-03-06)	Rd_1, EURO 2014
	Sherbrooke	Québec		Rd_5, 2013 Rd_1, EURO 2014

Speaking of Patrick, tonight is already his 500th game as head coach. I wonder if his buddy Dutil made him a cake.

All quiet on the Alumni front: Somebody do something! (Namely, can Hamilton win a game sometime this month?) UPEI faces off against UNB, Concordia is at Nipissing (no, I do not have a potty mouth. Not this time, anyway), Ryerson plays UQTR and Toronto and McGill have a Centraide Charity game planned at McConnell Arena tonight. Scott Howes and the Allen Americans have a rematch against the Arizona Sundogs in the CHL, while the ECHL's Florida and Cincy both have games tonight (for you Landry and Bouvet-Morrissette fans). Sean Couturier is in action against Norfolk, Palat and Hoffman face off, and it's a little harder to verify goalie-starts but Jake Allen should at least be within a hundred foot radius of the net as Peoria take on Milwaukee. No Hamilton until Sunday afternoon.

EDIT: Apparently Derick Brassard has signed in Austria, as per Aaron Portzline. His Columbus Blue Jackets just lost the All-Star Game due to the lockout.

Dread leads to...facefloor

My attitude of pre-game dread was very effective on Friday before running out of magic on Saturday and Sunday.

I really, really dreaded playing Rouyn.

GOALS	1	2	3	Total
ROUYN-NORANDA	1	0	1	2
DRUMMONDVILLE	2	1	1	4

Reverse psychology 101! With that, they were served just their fifth loss of the season. Hurrah!

POWER PLAY
ROUYN-NORANDA	1 / 4
DRUMMONDVILLE	2 / 9

A little less hurrah, but still, half the goals came on the power play! Not too shabby.

Drummondville: Brouillard (the elder), Malouin (welcome back), Verrier, Boudens.
Rouyn-Noranda: Mercier and Fournier.

Guindon was in net for this one, stopping 18 of 20. Gusse stopped 19 of 22.

I am so sick of The Circus it's not even funny. I was distracted enough to almost forget about this game, however, which lessened the amount of pre-game dread involved:

GOALS	1	2	3	Total
HALIFAX	1	3	1	5
DRUMMONDVILLE	0	0	1	1

With that, three wins were contributed by Drummondville to an almost-franchise record. Ouch. Thankfully Rimouski (and their shootout that was just short of involving the goaltenders shooting on themselves) was around to prevent it going in the record books.

And at least there will be no more games between these two teams this season.

POWER PLAY
HALIFAX	1 / 7
DRUMMONDVILLE	1 / 3

The Volts literally spent over half the game in the box.

Drummondville: Verrier from Brouillard (the not-so-elder).
Halifax: Ryan (2), Frk, Drouin, Ciampini.

Guindon again. 28 saves of a possible 33. Fucale stopped all but one of 15.

I did not dread playing Chicoutimi nearly enough as I should have.

GOALS	1	2	3	Total
DRUMMONDVILLE	0	2	0	2
CHICOUTIMI	1	4	1	6

Drummondville: Ratelle, and l'ex-Saguenéen Vermette.
Chicoutimi: Sylvestre, G. Gagnon (2), Sedlak, Grégoire, Dauphin. Hudon had three very big assists (ie. he  basically created at least two of the goals in question only to have them finished off by others) and Asselin also came out with three helpers.

POWER PLAY
DRUMMONDVILLE	1 / 8
CHICOUTIMI	2 / 4

Urgh!

The Sags not only bust open a seven-game winless streak, but if I heard right on the radio, replacement-goaltender Julio Billia gets his first win in the Q with 26 of 28 possible saves. The Volts shared goalie duties in this one, as Guindon made 22/26 saves and poor Graham made 5/7.

This week: More Atlantic teams. Saint John on Friday, Bathurst on Saturday. I dread Atlantic teams a lot, especially unpredictable middle-of-the-pack ones. You should do the same.

Alum-time: Olivier Donovan had three assists in a 6-4 win by UQTR over Brock. McGill won both their games this weekend, as former Voltigeurs' captain Marc-Olivier Vachon recorded a goal and two assists in a 5-2 win over Waterloo.

Yannick Riendeau had 4 points over the span of this weekend for Stockton, who beat Alaska both Saturday and Sunday after thwacking Bakersfield 6-1. Charles Landry found himself in a fight against Marc-Olivier Vallerand yesterday. André Bouvet-Morrissette's Cyclones beat Philippe Lefebvre's Nailers 2-1 as the former is still in search of his first pro point...

Finally, Sean Couturier now has 10 points in 9 games with the Adirondack Phantoms as he added a goal and two assists in their last game that saw them beat Albany 4-0. He was named the game's second star.

Comings, goings, and Euro-hoggings

Labrie, we hardly knew ye: Cue some more anger from Philippe Venne's supporters in Drummondville, as two games and a +1 is all she wrote for Ryan Labrie in a Voltigeurs' uniform. It was announced yesterday that Labrie left the team for the waiver wire on an apparent "mutual agreement." Should he not be claimed, he's headed for Vaudreuil Dorion in the LHJAAAQ. Most people who read that article are probably already adamant that that eighth-rounder in 2013 better be the next Derick Brassard.

(Venne has yet to score a point with his new team, who has gone 2-11-1-1 this season, so that's a little understandable.)

Murray moves up: Jordan Murray has a new role with the Voltigeurs. The fourth-leading scorer on the team with 11 points thus far this season is changing up from rearguard to forward. Not only that, he's headed to the first line.

Having scored 44 goals and allowed 53 against, you might say that the offensive needs of the Volts are pretty clear. M-O Brouillard, Jérôme Verrier and Olivier Archambault have shouldered most of that load. While Murray will skate with Brouillard and Jérémie Malouin (if the latter is ready to play), he is expected to continue occupying the point on the power play.

First and last comment on the CHLPA thing: So that's where Hockeyinsiderr disappeared to!

Got Euros?: In this season's instalment of Phrase-Recycling 101: So it would appear that (Sorensen, Kucherov, Grigorenko) has an injured (foot, shoulder, _____). No problem! We've got two other Euros. - the Remparts.

Good Lord. If this is the plan for the rest of the season, Brandon Shea probably won't be the only one walking out on you. Just trade someone and be done with it. Signed, Everyone.

Early morning alum-sighting tomorrow: Fans of ex-Volts blessed with a Friday off can catch the McGill Redmen in action as part of the 2nd annual "Stay in School" Morning Game that will see them face off against York University at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow, at McConnell Arena. Three former members of the President's Cup-winning 2009 squad, Vachon, McKiernan and Brunelle, all had a hand in the Redmen's 3-2 overtime win against Queen's last Friday.

So nobody ruined the circus.

...But they did try, so there is that. And this happened today:

Buts
1. DRU Bryce Milson, (3) (Guillaume Gauthier, Charles-David Beaudoin), 1:01
1. DRU Marc-Olivier Brouillard, (4) (Jérôme Verrier, Jordan Murray), 11:10 (AN)
1. DRU Olivier Caouette, (1) (Jérémy Auger, Andrew Tessier), 16:26
2. VIC Jean-Francois Leblanc, (2) (Petr Sidlik, Mathieu Ayotte), 5:13 (AN)
2. VIC Philippe Maillet, (3) (Tommy Veilleux, Philippe Halley), 11:31
2. DRU Jordan Murray, (3) , 16:33
2. DRU Jordan Murray, (4) (Bryce Milson), 19:42 (AN)
3. VIC Philippe Maillet, (4) (Carl-Antoine Delisle, Angelo Miceli), 5:39 (AN)
3. VIC Angelo Miceli, (5) (Phillip Danault, Tommy Veilleux), 19:00

5-4 W. So there is that as well.

If you haven't already, check out my pictures from the Halifax game!

Alum-roundup: Tonight the McGill Redmen men's hockey team took on the Carleton Ravens (pictures from this game will eventually surface as well). They won 6-4, and Ryan McKiernan would have had two goals but one was stolen from him by........Jonathan Brunelle. They were first and second star, respectively, and Marc-Olivier Vachon was all up in the assists and faceoff categories. Also J-P Mathieu and Benoit Levesque were there and the latter had a goal, yes, you get the picture, ex-Voltspalooza.

Elsewhere in the CIS, Remi Blanchard (U de Moncton) took on Marc-Antoine Desnoyers (UNB) and the former's team came out the victors this evening. Blanchard himself picked up a pair of assists. Meanwhile, Olivier Donovan scored in a losing cause for UQTR as they fell 6-2 to Ottawa.

Raman Hrabarenka didn't take long to get his first AHL point (assist), just 8 minutes, 18 seconds. Albany lost, though, 2-1. Former Volts' goaltender Jake Allen was unfortunate enough to take part in a 6-2 Peoria loss to Abbotsford. For their part, Adirondack and Sean Couturier had a better night. Couts took home first star honours in a 6-3 win over Portland (1 goal, 1 assist, six shots on goal). The Hamilton Bulldogs snuck out a 4-3 win in a shootout which Gabriel Dumont contributed to with a goal. Fred St-Denis was a +2. Mike Hoffman got an assist on the game-winning goal for Binghamton against Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Ondrej Palat got an assist as Syracuse beat Hershey, 4-3.

The only ex-Drummondville player on an official ECHL list, Mr. Bouvet-Morrissette, was not on Cincinnati's starting roster this evening. The C(entral)HL is still in exhibition and the Bloomington Blaze counts Pier-Olivier Pelletier in its lineup while the Allen Americans have both Scott Howes and Andrew Randazzo in their ranks. The Denver Cutthroats (!) have one Takuma Kawai as part of theirs.

The LNAH was also full of ex-Volts doing productive (and penalty-productive) things, but I should have a whole post dedicated to that in the near future. Maybe.

Enough information you didn't need? Good!

Vacation, shmaycation

A bunch of things decided they would take place the weekend I was off in Far Far Away (no donkeys included, but several cows and kittens. Also no reception).

First, when players become DJs:

Best remix for nightclub by DJ Jods (@OliJods10) feat DJ Narby (@Jonarby15) Official Pre-Game song of : Shawinigan Cataractes QMJHL

I may or may not be playing it at work at times that are not my lunch break such as it is currently.

When DJs become scorers:
SHA Raphaël Maheux, (1) (Frédérick Gaudreau, Dylan Labbé)
DRU Bryce Milson, (1) (Jérôme Verrier, Jordan Murray)
DRU Jérémy Auger, (1) (Jérôme Verrier)
SHA Olivier Jodoin, (1) (Zachary Taylor, Lukas Pozgay)
SHA JC Campagna, (1) (Jonathan Narbonne, Jean-Christophe Houde)
SHA Jonathan Narbonne, (1) (Dylan Labbé, Frédérick Gaudreau)
DRU Olivier Archambault, (3) (Nikolas Brouillard, Jérémie Malouin)

Aaaand with the Volts no longer capable of keeping up the charge they had going in the first, #theshawi wins 4-3, Narbonne with the GWG. News dropped this morning that he has since joined the Moncton Wildcats as part of a trade that was originally thought to alleviate the 20-year old player count on the Memorial Cup champs' roster, at least until it was revealed that Patrick Downe is also 20. So why split up the DJs?

Hang on, this is a Drummondville blog. Moving on...

Scraping out a W in Victo: After that disappointing loss against #theshawi, the Volts decided to take it out on the Tigres. It took until 17:05 of the second period for someone to score, and that someone was Victo's Philippe Hudon. At the tail end of a power play (!) to open the 3rd, Marc-Olivier Brouillard tied the game with help from Olivier Archambault and Jordan Murray. The latter then enlisted the same guys to help him win the game in overtime, the end result of a major penalty on Hudon who had taken out his frustrations on the younger Brouillard behind Drummondville's net and thus permitted a 4 on 3 to begin the overtime period.

Drummondville is now 4-3-0-0 to start the season and take on the winless Sherbrooke Phoenix on Wednesday.

Hrabarenka, so long (for real, now): We knew this already, but it's official now. Raman Hrabarenka/Graborenko/That Guy has moved on to greener pastures in Albany, which officially also opens up a Euro spot...

And then there was Török: Speaking of Sherbrooke, they traded 6'2" right-winger Tomáš Török to the Volts for a sixth round pick in 2014, which alleviates said extra Euro spot and gives the Slovakian a chance to take on his former teammates as soon as tomorrow. The 17 year old recorded 20 points in 9 games with HVK Svolen's Under-18s and four points in 13 games with their Under-20s last season. He had only played in 5 of Sherbrooke's 7 games before being traded, picking up 1 assist.

Howes it going: Scott Howes made a brief appearance at Texas Stars' training camp, and then back to Allen to participate in the Americans' training camp, where it was discovered that not only have they invited his brother Andrew to take part, but also another Andrew...Randazzo. The Ontario bracket of Drummondville seems to be quite aptly represented in the Lone Star State!

Lefebvre with Wheeling: In Bulldogs' camp, the roster that began with 43 players is continuing to thin out, as Hamilton have released one-time Voltigeur Olivier Fortier and sent Philippe Lefebvre down to the ECHL. For their part, Frédéric St-Denis and Gabriel Dumont are expected to be part of the final Bulldogs' roster.

University roundup: The CIS season is already underway, and should you be looking for more local forms of hockey to replace the NHL and can't always get to Drummondville (like me in the last, oh, two years), you can still have an alumni-fix (and take part in some really cool, competitive hockey):

Jean-Philippe Mathieu, Ryan McKiernan, Marc-Olivier Vachon, Jonathan Brunelle, and Benoit Levesque are (at last check) McGill Redmen;
Corey Garland and Olivier Jannard are Concordia Stingers;
Guillaume Nadeau and Olivier Hotte are Patriotes (UQTR);

...and a bunch of teams have yet to play so I cannot appropriately peruse their rosters.

Look, this already happened:
Jonathan Brunelle (Jean-Philippe Mathieu & Marc-Olivier Vachon) !!!

Alumni to return to Drummondville: La Tournée des Joueurs is set to visit Drummondville next Thursday, the 18th of October at 7 p.m. Tickets are going on sale for Volts' season ticket holders this Thursday and Friday from 9-9 before being opened up to the public on Saturday at 10 a.m. The latter sale is also supposedly going to be made available online and by phone, and the tickets (that get snatched up rather quickly) cost $20.

So...

Perhaps the fact that I have rescued and started blasting my old Nevermind CD is enough to represent the last two days.

Never mind, indeed.

"Bright" side: looking terrible is something of a trend in the Q lately. Halifax swept Moncton, Cape Breton is in the midst of wondering why they couldn't have switched places with P.E.I., and in the biggest twist, Victoriaville is down 3-0 in the series to Baie-Comeau. (There goes my "that should be an easy 5" prediction). Bathurst is literally the only team who was able to snag a game despite being the ones down in the series. Let's hope they don't end up being the only ones to do so in the entire first round.

BUT IN OTHER NEWS...

PRINCETON, N.J. – Yannick Riendeau of the Reading Royals is the Sher-Wood Hockey ECHL Player of the Week for March 19-25.

The 23-year-old right wing scored three goals, added five assists and was a +9 in three games last week, helping the Royals go 3-0-0 for the week to move into the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

Riendeau opened the week with an assist in a 3-2 shootout win against Trenton on Friday and then scored two goals and added two assists as part of a +4 effort in a 7-0 victory at Trenton on Saturday. He ended the week with three points (1g-2a) and another +4 rating in a 5-3 win against the Titans on Sunday.

A native of Boucherville, Quebec, Riendeau has 41 points (12g-29a) in 40 games with the Royals this season. He also has tallied six point (3g-3a) in 18 games with Providence of the American Hockey League.

Under contract to the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League, Riendeau has 89 points (33g-56a) in 100 career games with Reading and has tallied 11 points (4g-7a) in 46 career games AHL games with Providence.

On behalf of Yannick Riendeau, a case of pucks will be donated to a Reading youth hockey organization by Sher-Wood Hockey, the exclusive puck supplier of the ECHL. Since beginning its sponsorship of the award in 2000-01, Sher-Wood Hockey has donated more than 25,000 pucks to youth hockey organizations in ECHL cities.

Should've just made this blog about Volts' alumni, the way this is going: McGill is still off celebrating, Scott Howes had a goal in a 5-4 Bridgeport win, and Dmitry Kulikov was the latest participant in bringing down the Habs (+2, 21:18) after Sean Couturier, also in the "Volts gone too soon" category (1A, 2PIM, 16:55) had his turn on Saturday.

And it's Quebec.

'Sup Remparts?

I don't know how to approach this series. (Or the prospect of the postseason altogether, come to think of it.) I suppose the fact that Drummondville has a winning record against Quebec (3-1) in comparison to

• 0 wins all season against Victoriaville
• outscored by the Tigres 25-14 in those four games
• generally not being liked by Yanick Jean
  
  

...means we (I?) may have to thank our lucky stars that Rimouski let Victo win 4-0 this afternoon.

As imposing as both teams may seem, aside from a couple of minor hiccups, this month hasn't been a total nightmare for Drumm. Certainly finishing on the winning side of things against the division leaders has to be a plus.

That said, I'm not delving into playoff predictions this year. I don't feel like I've seen enough

action (that is the truth actually, this is the first season in seven that I have not been to a single Q regular season game) and generally I just don't like predictions, even if I wasn't terribly shabby last year (only got three winners wrong in total).

But I read something about mullets on one of the players' Twitter accounts. If that turns out to be the playoff hairdo, I may have to up my amount of vodka intake in this series. Not that it won't be stressful enough.

Update for those who cared to know: Stilts did not end up getting his 40th goal of the year, but is no less awesome. At the very least, may this playoff season send him off excellently.

Around the league: Oh, right. The other teams. Drum roll please!


Saint John faces: Cape Breton.
#TheShawi faces: Rouyn-Noranda.
Blainville-Boisbriand faces: Gatineau.
Victoriaville faces: Baie-Comeau.
Halifax faces: Moncton.
Rimouski faces: Val-D'Or.
Chicoutimi faces: Acadie-Bathurst.

Which you probably already knew before getting here, but just in case you forgot, there you go.

Injury scares seem to have a commonality in that they seem to target anyone eligible for the 2012 NHL Entry Draft. We all heard how Yakupov went down, how Galchenyuk came back only to go back down, and this weekend the bullseye landed on Marty Frk. The playoffs will reveal what shape the three players will be in, but good Lord. Start wrapping all the others in bubble wrap, pronto.

Update on the unfortunate trash can: it is safe from danger (for now) but still recovering from shock.

Alum-notes: Gabriel Dumont scored two goals against Grand Rapids Saturday night, but unfortunately, Grand Rapids scored five. He was still named second star of the game, however. Dany Massé and Olivier Fortier are still out of the lineup with injuries. Meanwhile, Freddy St-Denis has returned to the farm team cavalry after being scratched against the Isles Saturday night.

He may not be our captain anymore but he is no less fab.





Speaking of former captains, it also turns out that we have not seen the last of UQTR and that they and McGill (and UNB!) will all be participating in the CIS Championships like a fantastic 2009-and-beyond reunion. It all starts this Thursday, March 22nd, as Moncton faces McGill at 1:00 p.m. EST and UQTR battles the host-team UNB at 6:00 EST.

Stilts is a star

I think I'll start off by saying positive stuff, since I just recapped the Habs who--shockingly--didn't entirely screw up their Western swing last week.

The thing with the Q this year is that only one team gets screwed out of the playoffs. So with that perspective, even the Habs would make it despite not being anywhere close to deserving of it if that system was applied to the NHL (technically they'd also have to disperse a team a la Lewiston, and don't say Phoenix is the obvious choice because I will not hesitate to get violent with you). Well, because I do bring a certain brand of tough love with them, the same can be said for my Volts, but that being said, there is a particular bright spot that doesn't always get enough attention.

Except Jonathan Habashi beat me to it, because he's smart like that. But yes, André Bouvet-Morrisette.

(I can't show you his abnormally happy-looking headshot because I don't have photo rights and I don't want to get in trouble. But if you go to the Journal L'Express' link up above there you can see it.)

I call him Stilts for short because let's face it, his real name is a mouthful. He even shortened his Twitter handle to @47mo because he's probably aware of that fact. "Stilts" comes from the fact that the last game I went to at the CMD (which was all the way back in September of 2010, woe is me) I snuck down to front row and was immediately faced with his legs. Yes. I had to crane my neck to see what name was on the back of his jersey because he is that imposing leg-wise, as if he was on a pair of stilts!

This week, Stilts was named second star of the Q:

The second star is handed out to André Bouvet-Morrissette of the Drummondville Voltigeurs. The right-winger scored 4 goals and added 2 assists for a total of 6 points. Wednesday, in a 7-3 loss against the Quebec Remparts, he scored 2 out of the 3 goals for his team. Friday, in a 3-1 win versus the same team, he scored the third goal of the contest. Saturday, in an impressive 6-1 win versus the Baie-Comeau Drakkar, Bouvet-Morrissette scored a goal and added two assists. He was named the first star of the game.

The goal against the Drakkar was his 39th of the season. Dating back to last year, in which he first debuted with the team as a 19 year old, he has 101 points in 126 games. Not too shabby for a guy who was discovered pretty late.

He has the longest active goal-scoring streak in the league this season with eight. That's almost a franchise record that he won't get to tie or break because the regular season cuts him off by one game. The last forty-goal scorers with Drummondville were both drafted to NHL teams: Gabriel Dumont and Sean Couturier. But they were on teams who were at least more consistent than a bouncing tennis ball in a square room. (If you had to pick anyone whose Q career to be jealous of, I'd probably go with anyone who was there for most of the Sean era. Hey guys, I'm sixteen and probably the tallest guy here with the best playoff-beard capacities so let's win a President's Cup together! And even when we disband, my experience and talent will help keep this team afloat for two more years!)

But Stilts was only there for the tail end of the Sean era. People were skeptical about keeping him on as an overager. People were skeptical about him in general, and he just kept on keeping on, silently racking up points, respect, and leadership skills all while remaining humble. And now, with him as co-captain and in the top-20 scorers league-wide, those aforementioned people probably feel very silly.

The last two teams the Volts face in the regular season are: Shawinigan on Saturday (better get into the St-Patrick's Day spirit for that one, unless there's a chance the Cats haven't learned their lesson from the Rimouski game last week) and Blainville-Boisbriand on Sunday. I would love to be in attendance for either of them, but in all likelihood I won't, so I'll just transmit my energy into hoping for that number 40 for number 47.

Around the league: After winning 9 straight, Quebec was halted in their tracks by none other than these very Voltigeurs, after which they lost 5-0 to Gatineau who by some stroke of luck is still worse than us. Ha ha.

Alum-notes: Jake Allen's had a pretty rough go of this season, but he recorded his first shutout of the season on Sunday against the Abbottsford Heat. He's got top duties with the Rivermen now that Ben Bishop is off stirring the pot in Ottawa. Peoria next plays on Wednesday against Chicago.

I haven't figured out how this works, but despite being traded to the Islanders' organization on trade deadline day, Yannick Riendeau is back with the ECHL's Reading, where he started the season. Its affiliation is shared by Boston and Toronto, last I checked. Anyway, he got an assist in a 2-1 win against Trenton this weekend.

The McGill Redmen, who have a ridiculous amount of Volts' alumni and have somewhat forced me into betraying my alma mater by rooting for them, won the Queen's Cup 4-1 against Western and have put themselves into the CIS National Championships. Ben Levesque got the eventual GWG and former Volts' captain Marc-Olivier Vachon picked up an assist. Last year the Redmen lost to UNB (and Marc-Antoine Desnoyers) in the CIS final.

Meanwhile, Voltigeurs' school #2 UQTR, who was defeated by McGill last week, won bronze over Windsor by the count of 5-3. I can honestly say I don't know what happens to them now but I'm wondering if it means I have to find some way to keep Alexandre Demers' CIS eligibility valid because half the excitement of going to see UQTR these last few years was seeing him light it up again.

Misc.: In the "disconcerting stuff" category: Drummondville's potential playoff opponent as of this second is the Halifax Mooseheads. As a Czech sympathizer you can see my problem with this. Hint: it is vowel-free.