Ex-Dogs off to strong starts in new homes

Ghyslain Bergeron/QMJHL

Dawson Stairs got his Cape Breton Eagles career off to a great start this past weekend.

After completing a 14-day quarantine, Stairs made his Eagles debut on Saturday, scoring what proved to be the game winning goal in a 5-4 Cape Breton victory over the Maritimes Division leading Charlottetown Islanders.

On Sunday, Stairs found the scoresheet again, netting two goals on three shots in a 6-4 Eagles win over the Halifax Mooseheads.

The three goals on the weekend doubles his goal total on the season. Before joining Cape Breton, the Fredericton native recorded three goals and five assists in 13 games with the Saint John Sea Dogs.

Stairs was dealt to Cape Breton last month in the deal that saw 19-year-old forward Ryan Francis traded to Saint John.

The Eagles are back in action on Wednesday, hosting the Mooseheads in a game that will have fans in the stands for the first time since November.

Stairs isn't the only ex-Sea Dog finding his groove with his new club. Joshua Roy continues to produce for the Sherbrooke Phoenix, registering a total of four goals and three assists in six games with the team.

Sherbrooke will join the Shawinigan protected environment this weekend where they'll face the Cataractes (twice), Blainville-Boisbriand Armada and Val-d'Or Foreurs.

Notebook: Waiting game continues in NB

Another week has passed and there's still no clarity on when QMJHL games could resume in New Brunswick.

Both the Saint John and Bathurst regions remain orange while the Moncton area appears poised to join them in the coming days. Under current orange restrictions, teams are only permitted to practice. Health officials have said no region of the province will improve past the orange level any time soon which is obviously concerning for the Saint John Sea Dogs, Moncton Wildcats and Acadie-Bathurst Titan.

The QMJHL and the province are no doubt trying to find a solution for games to resume while in orange - but no agreement has been settled on yet.

“Given the presence of new COVID-19 variants in the province, and the speed at which they spread, it’s unlikely that restrictions for sports will be relaxed in the near future,” says Bruce Macfarlane, NB public health spokesperson.@Global_NB https://t.co/22dm0VrBe4

— Callum Smith (@smithc902) February 5, 2021

In that Global News story, Sea Dogs president and general manager Trevor Georgie said that his club expects "seven figure" financial losses this season.

In Nova Scotia, public health officials will allow spectators to attend sporting events beginning next week. The Halifax Mooseheads, Cape Breton Eagles and Charlottetown Islanders all resumed game action last weekend.

THN RANKINGS

Five current or former Sea Dogs players cracked their respective NHL club's top 10 prospect list in The Hockey News Yearbook. They are as follows:

Boston Bruins: #7 Jakub Zboril

Calgary Flames: #10 Jeremie Poirier

Detroit Red Wings: #3 Joe Veleno

New York Rangers: #10 Julien Gauthier

Tamp Bay Lightning: #10 Maxim Cajkovic

Zboril and Gauthier have both started the year in the NHL.

AHL season starts up this weekend

Embed from Getty Images

It's been a long off-season, but the American Hockey League finally resumes action Friday.

The league will understandably have a different look to it with three teams - the Charlotte Checkers (Florida), Springfield Falcons (St. Louis) and Milwaukee Admirals (Nashville) - opting out of this COVID impacted season. The divisions have also been realigned so teams can stay within a smaller geographic area (except for the Canadian Division, which is a bit of a mess as it awaits Ontario government approval).

Perhaps the best part about the AHL's opening weekend is that all games are free to watch on AHL TV until Monday (please take note, QMJHL Live).

Here's a look at the Sea Dogs alumni who received invites to AHL camps (drop us a note if we missed someone).

Bakersfield Condors (Edmonton): Ostap Safin

Chicago Wolves (Carolina): Spencer Smallman

Cleveland Monsters (Columbus): Brett Gallant

Manitoba Moose (Winnipeg): Luke Green

Ontario Reign (Los Angeles): Boko Imama

Providence Bruins (Boston): Callum Booth

Vladislav Kotkov took part in San Jose Barracuda (San Jose) training camp before being assigned to the Sea Dogs earlier this week.

Boko Imama has already been going back-and-forth between the Reign and the Kings taxi squad - and the same could end up happening with Tomas Jurco and Vegas/Henderson. Alex D'Orio will likely stay on Pittsburgh's taxi squad for the season, but would have likely become an AHL regular this year under normal circumstances.

A couple of notables not in the AHL this season include Jakob Zboril and Joe Veleno. Zboril is now a regular on the Boston Bruins backend while the Detroit Red Wings have opted to keep Veleno in Sweden for the rest of the season.

There's always plenty of turnover with Sea Dogs alumni in the minor pro ranks - but Brett Gallant has remained a constant. Gallant, now 32, has been playing pro hockey since the 2009-10 season and his HockeyFights.com page is still having clips added to it regularly. Gallant is one of the few remaining players from the Sea Dogs' inaugural 2005-06 season still playing the sport competitively.

Kotkov has finally arrived in Saint John

The Saint John Sea Dogs got a huge offensive boost this week.

Russian forward Vladislav Kotkov has made his way to Saint John where he'll join the Sea Dogs following a 14-day isolation period. The arrival ends several months of uncertainty surrounding border and travel restrictions.

“Our top priority during this process was ensuring we were following all federal, provincial and league protocols,” Sea Dogs president and general manager Trevor Georgie said in a news release. “We look forward to meeting Vladislav following his 14-day isolation.”

Kotkov joins the Sea Dogs after taking part in San Jose Barracuda training camp where he appeared in a few AHL pre-season games. The San Jose Sharks prospect played in one AHL regular season game in 2018-19 where he scored a goal.

The recently-turned-21-year-old has spent the past three seasons in Chicoutimi where he's recorded 77 goals and 79 assists in 177 QMJHL games. Last season, Kotkov registered 22 goals and 24 assists in 51 games.

Trouble in the (sort of) bubble

Andre Emond/QMJHL

The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League's "protected environments" hit their first major problem this week.

On Tuesday the league announced that a Victoriaville Tigres player had tested positive for COVID-19, forcing the team to leave the Chicoutimi environment and enter into a 14-day isolation period.

On Wednesday, the league delivered more bad news: a total of four Tigres players have tested positive and the Chicoutimi Sagueneens, who played Victoriaville twice last weekend, have been placed into a 14-day isolation period as a precaution.

The announcements mean the Chicoutimi environment will end with Wednesday's Val-d'Or/Gatineau game.

It's the first significant hiccup for these "protected environments," which had been very successful up until this point. The isolation periods will impact the next round of these mini-hubs as well, which are scheduled to begin Feb. 12 in Quebec City, Shawinigan and Victoriaville.

Also on Wednesday, the National Women's Hockey League, which was holding a protected environment event in Lake Placid, ended its season due to COVID outbreaks. This news, along with the QMJHL's, further goes to show that true bubbles seem to be the best method for getting games played safely without interruptions.

Reynolds, MacDonald make latest 'Players to Watch' list

Photo: Michael Hawkins/Saint John Sea Dogs

Two current and one former Saint John Sea Dog made NHL Central Scouting's latest Players to Watch list, which was released on Jan. 22.

Peter Reynolds and Joshua Roy were both given B ratings, which indicates a second- or third-round candidate. Cam MacDonald was given a C rating, which means a fourth-, fifth-, or sixth-round candidate.

Roy was recently traded to the Sherbrooke Phoenix. Reynolds and MacDonald are both in their first QMJHL seasons.

There were a few other notable names on the list.

• Forward Fyodor Svechkov, Saint John's first-round pick in the 2020 CHL Import Draft, was given an A rating.
• Defenseman Guillaume Richard, a fourth-round pick of the Sea Dogs in the 2020 QMJHL Entry Draft who is committed to the University of Maine, was given a B rating.
• Bobby Orr, a 2019 Sea Dogs draft pick who was traded to Halifax this off-season, was awarded a C rating.
• American forward Nick Roukounakis, a 10th-round pick of the Sea Dogs in the 2019 draft and a Boston University commit, was given a C rating. 

Only three players from the QMJHL were given A ratings: Rimouski's Zachary Bolduc, Shawinigan's Xavier Bourgault, and Halifax's Zachary L'Heureux.

In total, 35 QMJHL players were listed. The full list can be found here.

The 2021 NHL Draft certainly has the potential to be one of the strangest in history thanks to the pandemic, which has offered scouts very few - and any - chances to watch this year's crop.

The 2021 NHL Draft is currently scheduled for July 23-24. There are reports that some teams are pushing for the draft to be pushed into early winter or even into the summer of 2022, where two drafts would be held.