Thursday, June 16, 2022

Notebook: Smallman advances to AHL final

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Former Saint John Sea Dogs captain Spencer Smallman will play in the American Hockey League's Calder Cup final.

Smallman and the Wolves advanced to the league final by defeating the Stockton Heat in six games in the Western Conference final. They'll face the Springfield Thunderbirds, who needed seven games to eliminate the Laval Rocket. The best-of-seven series begins Sunday in Chicago.

Smallman recorded an assist on the goal that sent the Wolves to the final. He now has a goal and three helpers in 13 playoff games.

The 25-year-old is playing in his first Calder Cup playoffs. He's appeared in 130 career regular season AHL games with the Carolina Hurricanes' affiliate.

With the Rocket being eliminated, Joshua Roy's season is officially over. The former Sea Dogs forward appeared in just one playoff game with Laval after joining the team following the Sherbrooke Phoenix's elimination from the President Cup final.

WHO STARTS?
One of the major questions heading into Saint John's Memorial Cup opener Monday: who will start in goal?

Thomas Couture started all five of Saint John's playoff games but was pulled just 6:50 into the team's forgettable Game 5 performance, allowing two goals on four shots. The more experienced Nikolas Hurtubise, who won the President Cup with the Victoriaville Tigres the year before, had a very strong showing in relief, allowing two goals on 23 shots.

"I haven't even thought about it," Sea Dogs head coach Gardiner MacDougall told the Telegraph-Journal (paywall) on Monday.

"That's down the road. My thing is that I never usually make that decision until game day. So when game day comes, we will make that decision and move forward."

Noah Patenaude, who hasn't appeared in a game since early December due to an injury, has also been practicing with the club.
As for potential changes to lines and pairings, MacDougall told Craig Eagles that the team has been trying some things.

“There’s been some combinations in place and we have kind of experimented and we are going to see how everything goes," said MacDougall. "We are going to try different things and we have made some adjustments.”

SINGLES
Single game tickets to the 2022 Memorial Cup are now on sale.
TSN COVERAGE
TSN has announced details on its coverage of this year's Memorial Cup. It will be TSN's first time covering the tournament since taking over the rights from Sportsnet.

TSN will be broadcasting all of the tournament's games and it looks as though coverage will begin 30 minutes prior to each match.


TSN’s coverage is led by play-by-play announcer Victor Findlay and analyst Kevin Sawyer, with TSN 1050 Radio and BarDown host Julia Tocheri on-site to provide rinkside updates and player interviews throughout the tournament.

On location in Saint John, Laura Diakun hosts panel coverage alongside TSN Hockey analysts Craig Button and Cheryl Pounder.

Some of TSN's BarDown crew will also be making a trip to Saint John for the semifinal and final.

FAMILIAR TEAMS
The four teams playing in this year's Memorial Cup are no strangers to the event. The Sea Dogs have the most Memorial Cup appearances of the four teams.
WHL WOES
There will be a lot of eyes on the Edmonton Oil Kings as they look to end a bizarre losing streak for Western Hockey League champions.

WHL champions have not won a game at the Memorial Cup since the Kelowna Rockets in 2015.


What all of this shows us is that the WHL champs haven’t fared well of late; in fact, they have combined to lose their last 13 games. The last time the WHL champion won a Memorial Cup game was on May 29, 2015, when Kelowna beat the Quebec Remparts, 9-3, in a semifinal game.

The Oil Kings open the tournament on Tuesday against the Shawinigan Cataractes.

OH NO
The Bulldogs are already making enemies in Saint John with this spelling. Good to get this error out of the way early, though.
DRAFT NEARING
There's just a few things going on right now, but it's worth remembering that the 2022 QMJHL Entry Draft is just over two weeks away.

This year's draft will (sadly) take place virtually once again. The opening round will take place Monday, July 4 and rounds 2-14 along with the American draft will happen on Tuesday, July 5. The first round will be broadcast on the league's YouTube channel.
The Cape Breton Eagles have the first overall pick and they don't plan on trading it.

The 2022 CHL Import Draft will take place Friday, July 1.

CHANTLER DRAFTED
Sea Dogs forward Jacob Chantler was picked in the Maritime Hockey League's annual QMJHL Supplemental Draft.
ROCKY'S
NAMES
A new trend The Youths are taking part in.
OTHER THINGS
  • Sea Dogs defensemen Vincent Sevigny and William Villeneuve were both named to the QMJHL's second all-star team.
  • If you didn't hear (?), the season is over for Gerard Gallant, Mike Kelly, Jim Midgley and the New York Rangers, who were eliminated in the Eastern Conference Final by the Tampa Bay Lightning. Former Sea Dogs forward Julien Gauthier, who played in 49 regular season games with the Rangers, did not appear in any playoff contests.
  • Troy Dumville, a former assistant general manager with the Sea Dogs, has been named the new president of the Maritime Hockey League.
  • The Telegraph-Journal (paywall) reports that it doesn't look like Sea Dogs owner Scott McCain or the team will be in the running to take over the management of TD Station.
  • Saltwire recently spoke with the four Nova Scotians on Saint John's roster about their preparation for the Memorial Cup.
  • The Sea Dogs' website has a story on Gardiner MacDougall.
  • Craig Eagles has stories on Saint John's core group and Philippe Daoust.
  • As expected, the Cape Breton Eagles have named Sylvain Couturier the team's new "General Manager, Hockey Operations." Couturier spent the past 20 seasons with the Acadie-Bathurst Titan.
  • The world juniors won't have a massive impact on the schedules for the Halifax Mooseheads or Moncton Wildcats. Both clubs will play their first three games of the second half on the road. 
  • Interleague play is back as the Gatineau Olympiques and Ottawa 67's will play two regular season games against each other in February.

RANDOM QMJHL THOUGHTS
  • What an atmosphere in Charlottetown for the President Cup final. Tickets to Game 5 sold out in under an hour. It wasn't that long ago that Eastlink Centre had one of (if not the worst) atmospheres in the league.
  • While the Islanders didn't win, you have to give the franchise a lot of props for what it's accomplished over the past decade. They started from the bottom and are now a model franchise. Now if they can just get a new rink built...
  • If you're going to play the President Cup final in mid-June, you might as well play it in PEI. We'll probably (hopefully?) never see a league final this late again.
  • Former Sea Dogs head coach Gordie Dwyer was in attendance at Eastlink Centre Saturday, watching two of his former teams go head-to-head.
  • Three of the past four President Cup champions have lifted the trophy in a Maritime rink.
  • Shawinigan won the President Cup as the No. 7 seed, upsetting No. 2 seeded Charlottetown. Last year the No. 6 seeded Victoriaville Tigres won the President Cup over the No. 2 seeded Val-d'Or Foreurs.
  • Overage forward Pierrick Dube was quite a pickup for Shawinigan. Dube, who spent the first half of the season with the ECHL's Trois-Rivieres Lions, recorded 12 goals and 18 points in 16 playoff games with Shawinigan. He scored four times in the President Cup final.
  • Things we know about Shawinigan fans: they like horns and they travel. There will be plenty of blue and yellow walking around Saint John.
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