Sea Dogs Notebook

TOP TEAMS

Interesting stuff over at Hockey Prospectus as they have released their 2012 NHL organizational rankings. Not surprisingly, the Florida Panthers are ranked at No. 1.

“The Panthers system is headlined by stud prospect Jonathan Huberdeau, but it goes on way beyond him,” writes Cory Pronman. “Florida has accumulated not only depth, but talented depth. I felt the top four systems were somewhat interchangeable, but the fact that Florida has so many good prospects and a few high-end ones put them over the top for me.”

Five of the top 10 teams all had prospects playing on the Sea Dogs last year.

The Philadelphia Flyers were ranked last.

SAAB

As reported by Ian Saab himself on Twitter, Ian Saab is off to Europe. He’s headed to Austria where he will join EC Red Bull Salzburg.

“Ian Saab is also hoping that his ambitious style will win him a place on the Red Bulls' 1st division team, but to begin with he is only entitled to play on the farm team,” states the team’s website.

As Matthew Wuest notes, former Halifax Mooseheads Sawyer Hannay and Alexandre Grenier have both joined the same team. Both Hannay and Grenier were drafted by the Canucks while Saab attended Vancouver rookie camp last year.

Saab was eligible to return to Saint John as a 20-year old this season but was not guaranteed a roster spot.

YATES

The Post-Standard has an article on the Sea Dogs’ newest assistant coach, Ross Yates. He is a former head coach of the American Hockey League’s Syracuse Crunch but was not brought back after the 2009-10 season.

"I'm going to try it out for a year. It's the one league I've never worked in,'' Yates told the newspaper. "I've never had anything to do with juniors, so I'm looking forward to the experience. There will be a little adjustment, for sure. Most of the guys who came to us in Syracuse came right out of juniors. I pretty much know that stage of development. I think that will be an advantage for me.''

Yates says he has had plenty of job offers over the past two years but couldn’t find the right fit.

HOUSER

London Knights goaltender Michael Houser, who backstopped the OHL champs to a round-robin victory over the Sea Dogs at May’s Memorial Cup, was recently signed by Jonathan Huberdeau’s Florida Panthers. The two had a laugh at Panthers development camp last week.

"He scored on me in one of the scrimmages and after, he told me he was thinking about shooting it from outside the blue-line like he did (when he scored on the Knights at the Memorial Cup in Shawinigan), so that was pretty funny," Houser told the London Free Press.

THIRD JERESY

Five Hole for Food posted this video from their Saint John tour stop. It features a few better angles of Wayne Long wearing the Sea Dogs new third jersey.

As a lot of people have noted, the logo on the front looks like a similar design to the Saint John Flames’ dragon logo. 

Photo Credit: Marc Henwood/Station Nation