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.

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. 

Where irrational happiness reigns

The following is happening tonight:

Photo: L'Express' archives from about a million years ago, please don't sue me, I wasn't at the Q draft of 2006 so I don't have my own pictures.

Of course, the two men pictured here (although to be honest I still have trouble believing Dumont isn't 16 anymore) will be on different sides. As for which one will come out of it smiling, this has yet to be determined.

Also yet to be determined is the number of public disturbance complaints I am getting tonight (my guess is 21 272).

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.

The Value of St-Denis

Tomas Kaberle is a baby-daddy as of yesterday. Because there seems to be a fascination about how the Habs seem to randomly overload on defensemen, another call-up was made, this time to Frédéric St-Denis.

(Hey. No complaints here.)


Steady Freddy is an interesting case. He's been around, which is quite a change considering he stayed put in junior. Since his overage year he's made stops in Hamilton, Cincinnati, Houston, invited to whatever team is under Houston (sue me, I forgot one), Trois-Rivières, and now I've managed to get myself lost. Don't trust the order of this, either. Especially since the day he randomly signed a contract in Hamilton after I expected him to go back to the Wild organization was like a BOOM in my head followed by three sprinted laps of my living room. There may have been some damage caused (more in my head than in the living room, fear not).

Basically, he's back to being Steady Freddy and staying put in one place. Except yesterday, he was up with the Canadiens, which drew comments like "why can't Kaberle have babies more often?" ...the thought of which is frightening, but strangely flattering.

His stats are clean and empty across the board, which is his trademark (but remember that time he scored against the Canucks?!) 0 0 0 0 0, and then a shot on goal. The 0 in the +/- column was threatened a few times, but that tends to happen when your new blueline buddy is Campoli. Crisis averted, however. Ottawa Senators 2, Montreal Canadiens 3.

Meanwhile, in Hamilton: St. John's IceCaps 6, Hamilton Bulldogs 0.

Not that blowouts are an alien concept to the Habs' farm club this season. But a + sign on the end of that "useless/overvalued" stat is, especially on D. Bulldogs' captain and fellow savvy defenseman Alex Henry and St-Denis combine for a -4, but the rest of the Hamilton blueliners? -68.

I'm just poking around here (I haven't had fun with math in over a decade), and I'm well aware that my bias is super apparent. But I bet you can ask anybody in a Hamilton jersey how much they missed Freddy yesterday and they will tell you: A LOT.

Alum-notes: Not much today, but the fact that Ben Bishop is in Ottawa is looking like a healthy kickstart for Jake Allen. He won again yesterday, making 38 saves, including 18 in the first period alone. Meanwhile, former teammate Ondrej Palat, who these days can be seen in Norfolk, picked up an assist on Evan Oberg's 6th of the season in a 4-1 win over Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Couturier's former partner in crime has 20 points in his AHL rookie year.

ETA: Alex Comtois is singing.

Around the league: Benoit Groulx is PISSED.