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.

The Abitibi Split (or something that sounds more appetizing)

Wonderful news. It appears Drummondville fixed their power play!

Not at first, though: First they had to lose their home opener to the somewhat surprising (yet irritably so) Huskies, who stormed in from Rouyn-Noranda to score 4 goals to be met with only 2.

That night, the Voltigeurs were not totally shut out with the man-advantage, as both goals were scored on it, but it should be noted that they had a whopping TWELVE opportunities. Rouyn also used special teams for their goals, including a shorty which was the head-desk heard round the 67 train to Toronto where one could find yours truly refreshing the Q app for as long as was legally allowed on the VIA WiFi system.

Sidenote: Apparently I was right to include this Jean-Sébastien Dea character in my All Habs preview. He leads the league with nine goals and four assists in just five games.

On to Val-d'Or: This was a mean one. Olivier Archambault was on the receiving end of a Cédrick Henley hit that resulted in a) a major and misconduct for the latter b) 80% of the game's penalties having to do with both teams not liking each other very much.

It also resulted in power play goals. Guillaume Gauthier got one to tie the game before the end of the first, Archambault showed he was no worse for wear just over a minute later by potting in a goal of his own, Gauthier jumped in again with help from Nikolas Brouillard (who is back from his nasty injury, by the way) and Gabriel Vermette closed it out, again with help from Brouillard and Lukas Balmelli.

Anton Zlobin scored twice for the Foreurs in a losing cause, along with someone called Skyler Spiller, who quite frankly should be added to that Best Hockey Name contest the next time Forecaster or whoever had it last time brings it back up.

Tournée des joueurs: In alum-news, Brasstendresse was reunited last Thursday on Team Montreal as Guillaume Latendresse scored a goal and Derick Brassard probably had at least an assist somewhere (I can't find a boxscore) in a 7-4 win over Team Quebec in the first instalment of La Tournée des Joueurs, the locked-out player initiative featuring a number of NHLers from all over the league. The first game was in Chateauguay and sold out ridiculously fast, so people in St-Hyacinthe and Sherbrooke have probably also snatched up all the available seats for this week's games by now.

I will leave you with this picture as my lunch break comes to an end.

Om nom nom.