And the gloves come off.

Weekend wrap-up: Atlantic visits appear to be better than Atlantic roadtrips.

GOALS	1	2	3	Total
SAINT JOHN	0	2	0	2
DRUMMONDVILLE	0	2	4	6

This is the first win against Saint John since January 15th, 2011. Also, the first regulation win against them since September 25th, 2010. In either case, the Montreal Junior still existed the last time Drummondville beat Saint John, which should give away enough.

Drummondville: On this scoring sheet we have Archambault, Caouette, Gauthier (2), and M-O Brouillard (2).
Saint John: Goals scored by Huberdeau and Tesink.

GOALS	1	2	3	Total
ACADIE-BATHURST	0	2	2	4
DRUMMONDVILLE	4	1	0	5

This game was originally 5-0, but we'll ignore that because:

POWER PLAY
ACADIE-BATHURST	3 / 6
DRUMMONDVILLE	5 / 7

Look at the shiny new power play!

Drummondville: The only goal the Brouillards had no part in was Vermette's game-winning blast from the point. Otherwise they both scored, and Archambault and Verrier had the others.
Bathurst: Lalancette (2), he-who-doesn't-take-penalties (O'Brien), and Stevens.

Graham was in net for both games (!) and made a combined 42 saves out of 48. In the Saint John game, Drummondville outshot their opponents 44-17 and also topped Bathurst in that category, 44-31. Whoever this team is (minus the part about not maintaining a 5-goal lead), I like them.

Fighty time: Check out yesterday's spirited tilt between Alec Jon Banville of Bathurst and the Volts' 16-year old rookie Joey Ratelle:



Ding ding!

Concern for Geoffrion: As you have no doubt heard by now, Blake Geoffrion was the main story of Friday night's game between the Hamilton Bulldogs and Syracuse Crunch.

The NHL club issued a statement Saturday saying the 24-year-old underwent surgery for a depressed skull fracture and is expected to make a full recovery. Geoffrion, playing for the Hamilton Bulldogs in a game held at the Bell Centre, was caught with his head down as he drove along the boards by Syracuse Crunch defenceman Jean-Philippe Côté in the first period. Geoffrion was bleeding and holding his hands to his face when he skated off the ice to go to the dressing room. - TheSpec.com

At last check, he has been moved out of intensive care. Meanwhile, the Bulldogs' Facebook page is still offering fans the chance to send their well-wishes to Blake as he recovers from his injury. Get well soon, Blake!

In what concerns the scoresheet of that game and former Voltigeurs, Ondrej Palat was named second star, picking up two assists in the 4-1 win and posted a strong performance even aside from that. For his part, Gabriel Dumont got a helper on the lone goal by Hamilton.

This week: The CMD plays host to the Gatineau Olympiques on Thursday. Then the Volts make a visit to Boisbriand on Friday. Back home for Chicoutimi on Sunday. Get 'er done!

Alumni?: Quiet weekend, aside from the Hamiltonian/Syracusian aspect of things. Scott(y) Howes got the game-winner in a come-from-behind Allen Americans' win Saturday while Charles Landry scored his first of the season for the Florida Everblades in a losing cause, 7-6 against Gwinnett.

Ex-Volts face off tonight!

Syracuse Crunch (6-1-1-1, 2nd in the Eastern Conference, 1st in East Division) @ Hamilton Bulldogs (4-3-1-1, 10th in the Western Conference, 4th in North Division), 7:30 p.m., Bell Centre, Montreal.

Why you might care: If you are a loyal reader of this blog, you should perhaps not be asking this question. Former Drummondville Voltigeurs Frédéric St-Denis and Gabriel Dumont represent the "home" team Bulldogs in the arena their higher-level counterparts should have occupied for over a month and a half now and Ondrej Palat plays for Syracuse, who was Norfolk last year, and don't worry even I still can't even wrap my head around that part.

Other notables: Mark Barberio decided to lead the league's defensemen offensively last year. Wildcats' fan or not (and I have been both, in 2006 and 2010 respectively) that's interesting to know. Jean-Philippe Côté, for all you retro 00's Habs' fans, is on this team now, and makes his return to the Bell Centre tonight. Ditto for former Bulldogs J.T. Wyman and Eric Neilson. Philip-Michaël Devos and Danick Gauthier are also members of the Crunch.

Stats & stuff: Blake "Bambam" Geoffrion leads the Bulldogs with four goals, two assists this season. Brendan Gallagher, to the surprise of basically no one, leads the rookies with three goals, three assists. Dumont has two goals and one assist while St-Denis has the reverse. The latter also leads the team with a +5 (speaking of non-shockers).

Cory Conacher is 5th in league scoring with six goals and as many assists in 9 games. Palat is Mr. Assist on the team with 9, adding one goal, which is third on the Crunch and over a point per game. Barberio has fallen to 14th in league defensemen with at least 3 NHLers standing in his way. Damn that lockout!

Streaking: Syracuse is unbeaten in their last 3, including the last game over the Bulldogs, 3-0. Hamilton recently split a home-and-home with Rochester, and both games were decided by a goal. Geoffrion and Gallagher were the main stars of the 4-3 (W) scoresheet.

Updates from this game to come soon, or if you're unfortunate enough to follow me on Twitter, sooner rather than later.

So I've missed a lot of things.

First things first, I don't know if you know this, but the Shawinigan Cataractes are this year's Memorial Cup champions.

Good. Just getting that out of the way, it was an extremely pressing subject.

Second, the Sherbrooke Phoenix are the new kids on the block and this week they had their expansion draft. They selected Drummondville's Dominic Talbot-Tassi and Vincent Blanchette, as well as former Voltigeur Alexandre Comtois.

The QMJHL draft was also held this weekend. Without a selection to make until the second round, Joey Ratelle and Jérémy Auger were the first new Drummondville players of the day. Then after waiting three more rounds to speak again, defenseman Mathieu Amyot was selected. Winger Dylan Montcalm, 6'4" defenseman Alex Bilodeau (!), Louis-Philippe Guindon, Xavier Labonté, Gabriel Labbé, Sacha Harmois, Mark Dufour, and Bobby Hall were the Voltigeurs' other selections yesterday.

A few trades were also finalized: Toliver Bergeron of the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada was swapped to Drummondville for a ninth round pick next year, Jérôme Raymond went to Bathurst in exchange for 20 year old Jordan Murray, Jérémie Malouin made his way over from Quebec in exchange for two 2012 draft picks (rounds 2 and 4), and the additional pick sent to the Volts in that deal eventually became Joey Ratelle. Finally, Jonathan Oligny became a Cape Breton Screaming Eagle for a 2013 third rounder.

Other things that happened (or didn't):  André Bouvet-Morrissette had an invite to the Canadiens' combine, but eventually signed a contract with the Nashville organization.

Charles Landry was part of the Kelly Cup winning Florida Everblades team....

...and yesterday Ondrej Palat won the Calder Cup with the Norfolk Admirals. (With Landry technically as part of the roster. Double-champion!)

In the classroom, Ryan McKiernan, Jonathan Brunelle, and even Antoine Tardif were all recognized at the Guy Lafleur Awards of Excellence and Merit last week. McKiernan in particular got 6 A's for his 3.65 GPA ...and suddenly I feel ten times more awful as a student than I ever did.

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.

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.