Notebook: Lyons' improvement leads to selection

QMJHL

HALIFAX - A year ago, Brock Lyons was projected to be a fourth-round pick by QMJHL Central Scouting. The Saint John Vito's forward didn't hear his name called.

A year later, he was drafted by his hometown QMJHL team in the ninth-round. The improvements he made on the ice over the past year didn't go unnoticed by the Saint John Sea Dogs' scouting staff.

"Brock was a guy that we were looking at last year but we thought that his compete level was a little inconsistent," said Sea Dogs director of scouting Nick Lepore on Saturday following the conclusion of the QMJHL Entry Draft. "We saw the talent, we saw the skill. He's got size. He really has a lot of good tools. And then this year he really surprised us with his compete levels. Very consistent. It might be due to the fact that he was overlooked last year and he had a chip on his shoulder. He was really, really good all year."

Lyons, 17, posted 25 goals and 28 assists in 36 games with the Vito's. He also appeared in three games with the Maritime Junior Hockey League's Amherst Ramblers.

"We were following him all year. Last year we were kind of saying with Brock, if he steps up his compete level, he can be a very good player and he did that this year," added Lepore.

"By no means did we just select him because he's in Saint John. We really, really like the player. I think he can mix it up at camp as well and he can really force our hand maybe into something. He's a really good player with a lot of good tools and he has a lot of offense in his game as well. He is a shooter. Having him where we got him, it was a no brainer."

2026 pre-season schedule announced

The Saint John Sea Dogs are set to play five pre-season games this year.

The Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League announced its full pre-season schedule on Tuesday. Pre-season play begins Aug. 15 and will end on Sept. 12.

The Sea Dogs won't play their first exhibition contest until Aug. 26 when they host the Moncton Wildcats in St. Stephen. At five games, Saint John has one of the lighter pre-season schedules in the league.

Saint John will play three "home" games: Aug. 26 against the Wildcats in St. Stephen; Aug. 30 against the Rimouski Oceanic in Woodstock; and Sept. 4 against the Halifax Mooseheads at TD Station.

Here's a look at Saint John's full schedule:

Wed., Aug. 26: Moncton vs Saint John at St. Stephen's Garcelon Civic Center

Fri., Aug. 28: Saint John vs Moncton at location TBD

Sun., Aug. 30: Rimouski vs Saint John at Woodstock's AYR Motor Centre

Fri., Sept. 4: Halifax vs Saint John at TD Station

Fri., Sept. 11: Saint John vs Halifax at Dartmouth's RBC Centre

The Sea Dogs have played pre-season games at the Garcelon Civic Center and RBC Centre a number of times. This will be the second straight season the team plays in Woodstock.

The Sea Dogs playing a Quebec-based team in pre-season play is certainly an oddity. Woodstock is just 3.5 hours away from Rimouski, though. The Oceanic often faced the Acadie-Bathurst Titan in exhibition action.

Notably, the Sea Dogs don't face the Charlottetown Islanders – Jim Hulton's former team – nor the Newfoundland Regiment. The Sea Dogs and Islanders have been frequent pre-season partners for many years while Saint John faced the Regiment twice in Fredericton last year. The Regiment are currently not showing any pre-season games on their schedule.

The QMJHL's regular season will presumably begin the weekend of Sept. 18. According to a Mooseheads news release, the "2026-27 regular season schedule is expected to be announced in the coming days."

Meloche/Courchesne tandem expected

Michael Hawkins/Saint John Sea Dogs

HALIFAX - For many years, the Saint John Sea Dogs have had question marks around their goaltending situation at this point in the off-season.

This year, that does not appear to be the case.

Sea Dogs president and general manager Trevor Georgie confirmed following Saturday's QMJHL Entry Draft that Samuel Meloche and Rafaël Courchesne are expected to be the team's goaltending tandem to start the 2026-27 season.

The Sea Dogs acquired Meloche, a Buffalo Sabres prospect, from the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies last week. Meloche, who will turn 19 next month, has played over 50 games in each of the past two seasons. He'll certainly be looked upon to carry the majority of the load with Courchesne as his backup.

Courchesne, who will turn 18 in August, went 12-19-2 with a 3.92 goals against average and a .880 save percentage in 38 games with Saint John last year, his first QMJHL season. Georgie said he expects the netminder to have better results this season with a stronger defensive team in front of him.

"Courchesne will be back. That's our plan," said Georgie.

"We believe in Raf big time. He had a really good season for us facing a lot of really high danger shots."

When asked about what this all means for 17-year-old Jase MacPherson – who was a second-round pick of the Sea Dogs in last year's QMJHL Entry Draft – Georgie said the team doesn't want to rush him into the QMJHL. There's always the chance a strong training camp makes things interesting, of course.

Villeneuve's big post-season helps Marlies reach Calder Cup final

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An impressive post-season from William Villeneuve has helped push the Toronto Marlies into the Calder Cup final.

The Marlies defeated the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins 2-1 in overtime on Sunday to take the Eastern Conference final in six games. Toronto will face either the Chicago Wolves or Colorado Eagles in the American Hockey League's championship series.

Toronto was not considered a favourite to make a Calder Cup run this season. The team went 36-26-5-5 in the regular season and entered the playoffs as the seventh best team in the Eastern Conference. 

The AHL's playoff format remains weird and hard to follow (please stop this madness, AHL) – but the Marlies have had a long road to get here. The team did not have a bye through the first round and had to face the Rochester Americans in a best-of-three. From there they faced the division champion Laval Rocket and then the Cleveland Monsters in best-of-five matchups. All three of those series went the distance.

Villeneuve has been one of Toronto's best players. The former Saint John Sea Dog currently leads all AHL defensemen in scoring by a wide margin with two goals and 14 assists in 19 games. He also sits third in overall league scoring.

From the AHL website:

Toronto’s William Villeneuve (2-14-16) has a seven-game scoring streak entering Game 6, and his 16 playoff points are the most by a defenseman in the Calder Cup Playoffs since Coachella Valley’s Ryker Evans posted 26 points in 26 games in 2023.

The 24-year-old, who made his NHL debut earlier this year, posted three goals and 27 assists in 61 regular season games. This is his fourth season with the Marlies.

Toronto's lineup also includes former Sea Dogs forward Cedric Pare, who has three goals and six assists in 19 playoff games.

With Wilkes-Barre/Scranton eliminated, the seasons are over for former Sea Dogs forwards Boko Imama and Raivis Ansons. Imama had an assist and 18 penalty minutes in six playoff games while Ansons was held pointless in two contests.

There are no Sea Dogs alumni on the Wolves or Eagles. Game 7 of that series takes place Monday night in Loveland, CO.

Sea Dogs in 'final details' of head coach announcement

HALIFAX - The Saint John Sea Dogs hope to have an official update on the team's head coach situation within the next few weeks.

"We're in the final details on it," said Sea Dogs president and general manager Trevor Georgie following the conclusion of this weekend's QMJHL Entry Draft. "I would say we're working out the final details. I hope in the next two weeks, by the end of the month, certainly, that we'll work it out. We're in the final details and just trying to work through it."

A first reported by Mikaël Lalancette, Jim Hulton is expected to be Saint John's next head coach. Hulton recently left his position as head coach and general manager of the Charlottetown Islanders where he won two QMJHL coach of the year awards.

It's believed Hulton's contract situation with the Islanders has been holding up the process. He was not at this weekend's draft.

As first reported by Eastlink on Friday (and now being reported by Lalancette as well), Guy Girouard, Charlottetown's assistant general manager and associate coach, is expected to join Hulton behind the Saint John bench. He's been with Hulton and the Islanders since the 2016-17 season.

Both Hulton and Girouard remain listed on Charlottetown's website. Scott Harris, the Islanders' executive senior advisor, led the team through this weekend's draft. He was called the team's "acting general manager."

Hulton will take over for Brian Casey, who coached Saint John for the final few weeks of the season following the departure of Travis Crickard.

Saint John's head coaching position had plenty of interest, according to Georgie.

"I'll say we had, like, 75 people. We had some really impressive candidates as we brought it down. We probably could have made five really good choices but we're in the final part."

Sea Dogs feeling good about draft weekend performance

Vincent Ethier/QMJHL

HALIFAX - An eventful weekend was a good weekend for the Saint John Sea Dogs.

The Sea Dogs made a lot of noise during the first-round of the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League Entry Draft, trading down to eventually pull off one of the biggest deals of the night, acquiring defenseman Thomas Charbonneau and forward Ryan Howard from the Quebec Remparts.

With the 14th overall pick, Saint John selected Pictou's Lawrence Williams, one of the top-ranked defensemen in this year's draft class.

The Sea Dogs leave Halifax with a bolstered lineup via trades, 10 players added via the draft and a number of additional picks for future drafts.

"I thought we accomplished mostly what we were looking to do," said Sea Dogs president and general manager Trevor Georgie. "We had a plan coming into the weekend. We wanted to grow our assets, make sure that we were really flexible moving forward in terms of picks and players. We obviously had a positional need on left shot defense and being able to add
Tom (Charbonneau) and Lawrence (Williams), that can make a difference for our group. Howard was a guy we always really liked. Plays hard, plays physical. I think his best years are ahead. So we were able to add him, which fits into our age group. I feel really good about it."

While much of the buzz on Friday centered around Charbonneau and Howard, the Sea Dogs were certainly happy with the selection of Williams. Ranked ninth overall by QMJHL Central Scouting and second amongst defensemen, Williams recorded over a point-per-game (10 goals and 28 assists in 32 regular season games) with the under-18 Weeks Major Midgets last season.

"A two-way defenseman, very reliable, can play offence, can play defensively, can be a shutdown, can play physical. He's kind of like a jack of all trades, he can do a lot of different things," said Sea Dogs director of scouting Nick Lepore. "I think he's the type of player that stabilizes a d-core and that a coach can put on the ice and really have no worries about whether it's offensively or defensively. And just also a great human being, a great kid. We interviewed him twice and we really, really like his character."