SEA DOGS NOTEBOOK

PENS ON DESPRES

Simon Despres impressed at Pittsburgh Penguins development camp, making many within the organization begin to get excited about the ‘Big Horse’s’ future on the blue line.

“Like any young kid, one year makes a huge difference with confidence, maturity and just the way that he looks,” Penguins assistant to the general manager Tom Fitzgerald said to NHL.com. “He understands nutrition. He understands conditioning. You can see the transformation in his body in one year. When you try to forecast in five years what that big body is going to look like, that’s pretty exciting to think about.”

“You watch Simon on the ice compared to some of the younger guys, and you can see that he’s just relaxed,” he said. “He’s at ease with who he is and his surroundings. That makes for him to be more comfortable and more productive as a player.”

The Sea Dogs defenseman also reflected in his season in Saint John last year.

“We had a great team overall. It was a fun atmosphere in the room. It was fun to go to the rink. It reflected on my play. I got better as the season went on. I played with great players. We had a great team. It reflected on my numbers.”

CHURCHILL’S BACK
It’s been a long time since the name Jason Churchill popped up on the Sea Dogs radar. But the goaltender who played in Saint John’s first franchise game will suit up for the Halifax Mooseheads alumni just prior the Herd’s pre-season tilt against the Dogs on Sunday, August 22 at the Halifax Forum.

According to Metro Halifax, the Newfoundland native will suit up for the Moose when they take on the Halifax Regional Police.

In his one season with the expansion Sea Dogs, Churchill had a record of 14-44, a goals against average of 4.16, and a save percentage of 0.894. The backstop allowed 239 goals against that season. To put that into comparison, Saint John has not allowed that many goals against in each of the past three seasons. Although his stats may be bad, he did pickup 14 of the teams 15 victories in 2005-06.

GAME WINNER
“Stanislav Galiev converted a nifty deke in the shootout this morning to lift White to a 6-5 shootout victory over Red in the second scrimmage of Capitals development camp,” reported Tarik El-Bash of the Washington Post on Thursday afternoon.


Galiev also scored in regulation. Mastro72 sent Station Nation video evidence of the Sea Dogs forward’s first goal.

“On the white team, Stanislav Galiev was bumped down to the second line, serving with Wade MacLeod (Jr, Northeastern) and Garrett Mitchell (WHL, 2009 Draft, 6th Round, 175th overall),” writes the Capitals blog Russian Machine Never Breaks. “The chemistry of the Galiev-MacLeod-Mitchell line was palpable: the line exploded for the first three goals of the scrimmage – MacLeod was 2-1-3 and Galiev was 1-1-2. Galiev scored his goal camped out in front of the net on a nice deflection that beat goalie Taylor Nelson”

In the final scrimmage held on Saturday, Galiev added another shootout goal to help the white team to victory.

MORE ON GALIEV
As if we haven't mention the excellent blog Russian Machine Never Breaks enough this past week, here is an interesting article on Galiev and his friend/fellow Caps prospect Evgeny Kuznetsov helping out a University of Maryland first-year Russian class.

RMNB also sent out this tweet:

Evgeny Kuznetsov told us that he bought a PS3 this week. When asked what games he got, Stanislav Galiev interrupted & said "Toy Story 3."

Speaking of learning languages, Galiev reminisced on time with Indiana in 2008-09 with little knowledge of the English language.

“I didn’t speak English at all when I came [to Indiana of the United States Hockey League]. It was just really hard,” Galiev said to Comcast Sportsnet Washington. “Sometimes we are just chilling together. It is good when you have other Team Russia guys. It is so much better than when you don’t speak English a lot and sometimes you are shy.”

2012 FRONT
The Sea Dogs stated in their official newsletter this week that they plan to not only attempt to defend the regular season banner this coming season – but in 2012 as well. The team also published the following on thier 2012 Memorial Cup bid:

Our front office is already hard at work preparing a bid to host the 2012 Memorial Cup Tournament, and we're confident that our outstanding on-ice product in conjunction with our first-rate facility and tremendous fan support will go a long way towards ensuring that this prestigious event will indeed by staged in the great city of Saint John.

McPHEE ON STAZ
Washington Capitals general manager George McPhee on Galiev to Comcast Sportsnet:

“Galiev is as expected and we like him better at center ice than the wing. We like him a lot.”

PETERSEN GETS ON THE BOARD
From today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Goals by Zack Sill, Joey Haddad and Nick Petersen Saturday afternoon at Southpointe will not be logged in any official manner, but the reason they and several others were in town and on the ice is something of growing importance for the Penguins.

The three young forwards scored in the scrimmage that marked the end of the annual development camp, which was started by general manager Ray Shero after he arrived in 2006.