Sea Dogs Notebook

FOOD DRIVE

Just a reminder: tonight is Rivalry Cup food bank night.  Tonight’s game between the Sea Dogs and Wildcats will feature a special food drive for the Community Food Basket. Saint John’s donations will be measured against those gathered Saturday in Moncton. The city donating the most food by weight will earn three extra points in the Rivalry Cup.

WJC TODAY

Tomas Jurco and Slovakia are back in action today at the World Junior Hockey Championships. They take on Finland in today’s first quarter-final game. The winner moves on to play Sweden in tomorrow’s semi-final. Game time today in Calgary is 6pm AST and can be seen on TSN.

The other quarter-final game sees the Czech Republic take on Russia. The winner moves on to play Canada tomorrow night. Game time today is 9:30pm and can be seen on TSN as well.

Charlie Coyle and the Americans begin the relegation round tomorrow against Latvia.

OKE’S DEBUT

Scott Oke made his Rimouski Oceanic debut on Friday, helping his new team beat the league-leading Quebec Remparts 3-0. Oke, wearing No. 71, had two assists in the game and was named first star. He had no shots in the contest and finished with a +1 rating.

The Oceanic sit seventh overall in the league with a record of 24-18-0-0.

TRADE

The Sea Dogs made an extremely minor move last week, sending a 14^th and seventh round pick in the 2012 QMJHL Entry Draft to the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada in exchange for a 14^th round pick. It was the third transaction the Sea Dogs have made since the trading period opened.

COYLE AFTERMATH

This is a few days old, but still a good read from TheBoston Hockey Blog. The article features Boston University head coach Jack Parker discussing Charlie Coyle’s departure.

“Coyle had three goals and Trivino had 13 goals, so you tell me who we’ll miss more,” Parker said. “Coyle has been a really good player for us, there’s no question about it, but it’s not as if we’ll miss his total output. He was on the first line since he’s been here. He was on the power play since he’s been here. He couldn’t have possibly gotten more ice time than he had. We can replace him with a lot more guys in that ice time and get a lot more goals than just his three.”

In a poll on The Boston Hockey Blog, 26% of voters say Coyle is a bigger loss than Trivino. Trivinno has 64% of the votes.

DESPRES SENT DOWN

The Pittsburgh Penguins reassigned former Sea Dogs defenseman Simon Despres yesterday, sending him back to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins of the American Hockey League.

According to the Penguins’ website, “Despres, 20, has played in 13 games for Pittsburgh this season, tallying four points (1G-3A) and a plus-4 rating while averaging 15:27 minutes.” Despres became the first ex-Sea Dog to score a National Hockey League goal on December 17.

THE MONTH AHEAD

Looking at the Sea Dogs schedule for January, this is a bit of a bizarre month. Saint John will play nine games with seven of those being played at Harbour Station.

The Dogs will play four mid-week games – one on a Monday, one on a Wednesday and two on Thursdays. Of the five Sea Dogs weekend games this month, three will be played on Saturdays and the other on Sundays. Saint John will not play on Friday at all in January.

Also strange – the Sea Dogs will play back-to-back games just once this month.

HABS PROSPECTS

The Montreal Canadiens may not be having the greatest season, but three of their prospects are having a good time with Team Canada at the world juniors. Nathan Beaulieu, Michael Bournival, and Brendan Gallagher are all Habs prospects playing on Team Canada. The CBC has an article on the trio.

"The whole team has jelled since the beginning of camp," Beaulieu said. "But overall we [the three Habs prospects] have jelled more from this experience. It's neat having four in this game if you include [U.S. defenceman Jarred] Tinordi. It just shows the promise for Montreal in the future and this will help build relationships."

SOLID FIGHT

Friday’s game at Harbour Station featured a solid fight between Grant West and PEI'S Alex Gallant. Here’s the video, courtesy of HockeyFights.com.

2012

Mikael Lalancette has 12 hot topics to watch in 2012 on his blog en francais. One of the topics is the possibility of the Sea Dogs having a third straight 100-point season and winning back-to-back to Memorial Cups.

Photo Credits: Marc Henwood/Station Nation