CSS (not the fancy codey kind) midterms...

It may be the beginning of the NHL season, but it's already midterm season for the youngins  And by that you should know I mean draft rankings.

While the Jones/MacKinnon drama rolls on and the Q holds five of the top 10, Nikolas Brouillard, who was all sorts of fantastic on Sunday against Val-d'Or, is listed 148th among North American skaters.

Louis-Philip Guindon, for his part, is twelfth in terms of North American goaltenders. (The only Graham on that list is Charlie from Belleville. Oops.)

It's early yet, there are a lot of games still left to play. Including:

Rimouski: 28-11-1-4, 61 points, 4th in the league, 170 GF, 140 GA, won their last three straight, Peter Trainor is third in league scoring with 30 goals, 37 assists. Their netminder, Philippe Desrosiers, has a GAA that leads all rookies and is seventh overall (2.97), and he has a .905 SV%.

Drummondville: 24-15-2-1, 51 points, 8th in the league, 140 GF, 142 GA, just won 5-2 against Val-d'Or, Verrier still leads the team with 48 points in 42 games, and Guindon is the second-best rookie with a 3.19 GAA and .880 SV%. Domenic Graham is behind him with 3.26 and .872, and the most recent win under his belt.

Head-to-head: The only game opposing the two teams this season was a 7-5 Rimouski win where Verrier and Malouin each scored twice.

From midterms to exams (of a medical nature): Frédéric St-Denis is now among the group lining up to take a physical for his part in the extremely brief training camp currently being held by the Habs. He and Louis Leblanc, Patrick Holland, Michael Blunden, and Michael Bournival are lining up in a scrimmage to be held Thursday at the Bell Centre, along with Gabriel Dumont (among others). Other ex-Volts that got called up to participate in camps include Mike Hoffman and Sean Couturier. Meanwhile, André Bouvet-Morrissette is now in Milwaukee after being called up, and with the Springfield Falcons losing some of their players to training camp, maybe they can finally test Scott Howes and see what he's capable of...

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.

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.

The Road to Atlantis, or at least Atlantic Canada

A look at the weekend that was for the Drummondville Voltigeurs:

The Circus, Part II, went about as well as part I:

GOALS	1	2	3	Total
DRUMMONDVILLE	1	1	0	2
HALIFAX	2	1	3	6

Drummondville: Török scored and later assisted on Archambault's 7th of the year. M-O Brouillard had two helpers.
Halifax: Fuhgeddaboudit. Drouin makes his return to the lineup in this game and winds up with 4 points including two goals (one shorthanded), +3 and first star. Some MacKinnon guy scored two goals as well. One of my favourite names in the league (as @EP31 has had the misfortune of witnessing in person those times they played at the Verdun Auditorium), Konrad Abeltshauser, picked up two assists.

The plus side:

POWER PLAY
DRUMMONDVILLE	2 / 5
HALIFAX	2 / 6

Louis-Philip Guindon still managed 27 saves despite the loss. His counterpart, Zachary Fucale, made 16/18 stops.

Enter Graham! (Remember that guy?):

GOALS	1	2	3	Total
DRUMMONDVILLE	2	1	1	4
CAPE BRETON	1	0	0	1

POWER PLAY
DRUMMONDVILLE	1 / 3
CAPE BRETON	0 / 2

Drummondville: With the exception of M-O Brouillard, it was a J night. Jérôme Verrier! Jérémy Auger! Joey Ratelle! (First goal in the Q for the latter.) And hold on to your chairs, as the most assists category of the night was won by ...Archambault.
Cape Breton: Alexandre Lavoie was the lone goal-scorer for the Eagles.

Graham stopped all but one of 17 shots and Alex Bureau was pretty busy with 39 shots, stopping 35.

Deflate that happy-faced balloon: Just when we thought putting Graham in for the second time in 24 hours against the same team wasn't a crazy idea, Cape Breton said "And now, for a taste of your own medicine!"

GOALS	1	2	3	Total
DRUMMONDVILLE	0	1	0	1
CAPE BRETON	1	1	2	4

Womp womp.

POWER PLAY
DRUMMONDVILLE	0 / 3
CAPE BRETON	0 / 1

Drummondville: Matt Boudens gets his first of the year!
Cape Breton: Carrier, Lavoie, Malone, Woodworth. Former Voltigeur Jonathan Oligny got on the scoresheet as well with an assist (and two delay-of-game penalties), finishing +3 on the night.

Domenic Graham made 17 saves on 20 shots, while Philippe Trudeau made 15 on 16.

Friday, the Huskies are in town:
Rouyn-Noranda: 12-3-0-1, 25 points, second in the league behind the Circus, 78 GF, 53 GA, four-game winning streak, J-S Dea and Sven Andrighetto top the league with 31 points each in 16 games, Robin Gusse has a 3.07 GAA with a .887 SV%.

Drummondville: 8-8-0-0, 16 points, 10th in the league, 44 GF, 53 GA, went 1-2 on their Atlantic roadie, M-O Brouillard leads the team with 16 points in as many games followed by Archambault with 15 points, Guindon is the league's best rookie netminder at 3.10 GAA and .877 SV%. Graham has a .858 SV% and a 3.18 GAA.

Head-to-head: Split so far this season (4-2 loss, 5-4 win) with Török's hat trick the freshest memory between the two teams.

Around the league:

Apparently, Étienne Marcoux is Sugar Crisp's latest poster-boy. This reminds me of the good old Gretzky Wheaties days:



Alum-news: It was a losing weekend for most ex-Volts in the AHL, but Sean Couturier picked up assists on both goals in a losing cause against Rochester on Saturday, as well as second star. Moving back to Friday night, both Frédéric St-Denis and Gabriel Dumont scored en route to a 5-4 overtime loss against those pesky Toronto Marlies, and Jake Allen made 32 saves against the Chicago Wolves as Peoria beat them 4-1.

Olivier Fortier has found a home with the Orlando Solar Bears of the ECHL and scored what is already his third goal of the season as Greenville topped Orlando 6-5 on Sunday. Philippe Lefebvre picked up a goal in a shootout win vs. Reading on Saturday and two assists as Wheeling won 7-3 the night before against those same Royals.

In the CHL, Pier-Olivier Pelletier made 42 saves in a 6-4 win against Wichita on Friday. On the same night, he who now goes by Scotty Howes picked up two goals, both on the power play.

What other HL's am I forgetting? Ah, yes. KHL. Lokomotiv Yaroslavl's Dmitry Kulikov has 3 goals and one assist in 12 games so far this season. And since I'm already in Europe, Tomáš Svoboda has apparently been stopped in his tracks (3G, 5A in 7GP for HC Kometa Brno) with a shoulder injury that will sideline him for another month or so while fellow Czech Tomáš, Zohorna, has nine points, including four goals, in 17 games for HC Pardubice, team of the Hemskys, Krejcis et compagnie.

The Forever Preseason is Finally Over

The biggest and best headline this post has to offer is the one above.
Drummondville's record: 3-3-0-1 in seven games spread out over five months. That leads to a scathingly precise .500 record. Meh!

However, in those 7 games, the power play had an efficiency of 30% and 29 goals were scored.

Points leaders:
Bryce Milson (6 goals, 4 assists)
Marc-Olivier Brouillard (3 goals, 7 assists)
Olivier Archambault (one goal, 9 assists)
Jordan Murray (2 goals, 7 assists)
Jérôme Verrier (5 goals, 2 assists)

The first regular-season game is this Friday at 7:30 p.m. in #theshawi against none other than the defending Memorial Cup Champions.  The Cataractes have had a surprisingly good preseason, going 5-3-0-0 in their eight matchups (they also scored 29 goals).
 
What of Hrabarenka?: Apparently it's still a case of the wait-and-see with the Belarussian defenseman, who will report to Albany despite the influx of people previously playing in the NHL having been assigned there this weekend. Should he return to Drummondville, Dominic Ricard gets to be the one to decide what happens next.

Sean, we hardly knew ye: Today's most duh-worthy news goes to the fact that Sean Couturier will not be returning to Drummondville. (The fact that it was even presented as a possibility is quite cruel, to be quite honest.)

Howes, what are you doing?: Former Kelly Cup MVP Scott Howes is the latest addition to the Allen Americans (Central Hockey League). Adam Pineault, Chris Doyle, and Bradley Gallant are among the other former QMJHLers on the Allen roster presented on their web site. But Howes, as a result of that stellar 2010-11 season that saw him become playoff MVP, saw some time in the AHL (!) last season under former coach Brent Thompson, scoring eleven goals and as many assists for the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. Being that the AHL is currently more than full, heading back to Bridgeport might not have been a feasible plan. But what's wrong with Alaska? :( /rings cowbell in a corner

Zohorna and Svoboda on the same roster again! Sort of: Speaking of influxes of NHLers, the Czech ones are of a particular interest to yours truly (yet another occasion to use the word duh!) and in seeing where some of them were off to, a discovery was made on HC Kometa Brno's roster this morning:

Source: http://www.hc-kometa.cz/soupiska.asp

Hynek indeed appears to be the other Tomáš' little brother. While it's not 100% the reunion I was hoping for, it did bring tears to my eyes.

A Plea for Sweater Vests, and Some Other Stuff

There was a distinct lack of this in 2011-12:

Borrowed from @EP31's blog. And no doubt, Journal L'Express.

And it showed.

Regardless of shared theories pertaining to sweater vests, Mario Duhamel will remain a Voltigeur for the next three years. He signed an extension recently, along with Louis Robitaille. In fact, the whole coaching staff is here to stay.

Onto serious business now. Arguments in favour of Duhamel bringing back the sweater vest:

1) President's Cup hangover didn't happen. Sure, Couturier and Palat helped out a little, but it was really the sweater vest. Wins would happen more frequently if he wore it. Check your VOX footage.

2) It gives off the homey grandpa feel without aging the rest of him. In fact, he's just about the youngest-looking coach I've ever seen, which means a lot given the season he's just endured.

3) Original!Coach, Guy Boucher, can have a freakout episode like the best of them. Shades of Richard Martel, sometimes. He can even match ties with suits to a varying degree of success, like Duhamel. But he didn't have the sweater vest. The wave of reminders and/or comparisons to Boucher came to a screeching halt in that department. Which is good, because everyone that comes after him usually wishes there was some sort of buffer zone beforehand. That buffer zone is secretly shaped like a sweater vest...

Around the league: Saint John sneezed yesterday and Etienne Brodeur erased their win-streak. They were bound to mess up at some point, right? But let's not let it happen again because I want a full ten points in my pool.

Also, J-P Mathieu is beasting it up in Rimouski, in case you haven't seen. Someone (non-repulsive) better snatch him up this offseason.

Alum-watch: Most guys are on vacation, and Scott Howes' AHL team was eliminated this week, but his season's not over. He reports to Alaska, who won their opening-round series against Stockton, before they take on the Las Vegas Wranglers. He's last year's ECHL Playoffs' MVP...

(The only sad part about that is that Eric Lampe is going to be on the other side now, which will cease my I love Lamp(e) jokes for the time being.)

You saw what Sean Couturier did in the NHL playoffs recently, no doubt. Wait. No?



Mike Hoffman is also up with the Senators, but hasn't seen any action yet. 

And so it ends.

It's been so long since Game 4's untimely, tragic end that I've forgotten what I came here to say. My first thought is "well, thank goodness that's over."

Perhaps that's harsh. But no less true. The greatest blessing my first-ever favourite team, the Montreal Canadiens, gave me that day was firing Pierre Gauthier. Not because of the obvious. The overtime loss and therefore four-game sweep of the Drummondville Voltigeurs was not Reason Numero Uno anyone made their way to the Quebec Remparts' post-game press conference. That, of course, was Patrick Roy. Hurrah for overblown speculation sweeping very real embarrassment under the rug!

It's also true because, instead of focusing on what could have been, it gives way to the future. The Domenic Grahams et compagnie have valuable experience to add to their resumes and another fresh crop of prospects and acquisitions (because in my experience I have never known Dominic Ricard to miss the boat during or after trade period) will make their way into the fold. They'll all step up to the plate together and try again.

Together. I'm going to draw from the departing André Bouvet-Morrissette's quote: "Les gars doivent retenir que lorsqu’on est unis, tout devient possible."

Together everything is possible. I hope everyone he's left an impression on (read: an entire population and thensome) in his brief two-year passage takes that message to heart and even tattoos it on for next year and beyond.

Speaking of Stilts, he has apparently attracted a couple of NHL clubs such as the Sharks and the Kings (among a class of others, I'm sure). I've got an eye out for ATO/PTOs, and will certainly pass along the news here and/or Twitter if he finds a home.

Bet you didn't know: David Desharnais' first AHL club was the Bridgeport Sound Tigers, who offered him a tryout after Chicoutimi was eliminated six years ago. I think they may regret not signing him to a real deal.

This has not been Photoshopped. He has been able to stand tall before!

Around the league: Saint John (duh), Halifax, Blainville-Boisbriand, Baie-Comeau (eek), Chicoutimi, Rimouski, and #theshawi are the other teams that have moved on. Quebec next takes on the Mooseheads, BLB and Rimouski are facing off, the Mem Cup hosts are up against Chicoutimi and...Baie-Comeau awaits the crushing block. Not to say they don't have momentum, though, which'll throw a wrench in a few predictions.

Dose of mind-f*ckery: Back to that Patrick Roy debacle. TVA Sports spoke to Richard Martel this week, who is looking for his next project. Mix that thought in to the seed of doubt that's been planted surrounding Roy's status...

As much as half of me is shouting all sorts of profanity against the inference that seems hopelessly wrong, the other half is proverbially sitting in the Colisée Pepsi with a jumbo bag of popcorn.


Alum-watch: I can't even write anything mind-blowing here to detract from my obvious sadness that started this post. But for what it's worth, Philippe Lefebvre scored a goal (from Massé!) in a comeback victory by the Bulldogs on Saturday, and Ondrej Palat and Philip-Michael Devos scored in the same game on the same side and were named second and first star respectively, all of which still weirds me out. For his part, Palat has a seven-game point streak happening right now. Oh, and Derick Brassard has gone slightly bonkers pointswise himself (6 in 6 GP) lately and Sean Couturier scored a goal yesterday and added an assist today.

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.

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.