D Roman Polak (Kootenay, 2004-05) signed a lockout contract with Vitkovice Ostrava (Czech Republic, Extraliga). He had 11 assists in 77 games with the St. Louis Blues last season.
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After being a healthy scratch twice on the weekend, F Matt Bellerive has requested a trade and left the Vancouver Giants.
Bellerive, who turns 18 on Dec. 7, didn’t play in either of the Giants’ first two games — a 6-4 loss to the visiting Victoria Royals on Friday and a 3-2 setback in Victoria on Saturday.
Bellerive, a second-round selection in the 2009 bantam draft, is from North Vancouver. He had 14 points, including six goals, in 46 games last season. In his freshman season (2010-11), he had six points, four of them goals, in 50 games.
The Giants were 1-3-2 in the exhibition season, before opening with the two losses against victory.
They now have dropped three forwards off last season’s team, as F Taylor Makin, 20, was assigned to the AJHL’s Brooks Bandits sometime after Saturday’s game, while D Kiefer McNaughton, 19, joined the BCHL’s Chilliwack Chiefs earlier this month.
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SUNDAY’S NOTES:
The Edmonton Oil Kings ran their regular-season winning streak to 13 games as they beat the visiting Red Deer Rebels, 6-2. . . . Edmonton F Curtis Lazar scored three times for the first time in a WHL game. . . . The Rebels lost F Turner Elson, 20, in the second period with an undisclosed injury. . . .
The Portland Winterhawks went into Kennewick, Wash., and beat the Tri-City Americans, 4-2. . . . Tri-City, which lost 5-2 to the visiting Spokane Chiefs on Saturday, last lost its first two home games in 2005-06. . . . The Winterhawks were without F Ty Rattie (suspended) and F Taylor Leier, who has the dreaded lower body injury. . . . F Patrick Holland earned one assist for the Americans as he played what may have been his final WHL game. He now leaves to join the AHL’s Hamilton Bulldogs for training camp. He has 209 points, including 63 goals, in 206 games with the Americans. . . . Portland D Troy Rutkowski had three assists and perhaps someday someone will explain why an NHL team didn’t sign him over the summer. . . .
In Everett, the Prince George Cougars erased a 6-3 third-period deficit and beat the Silvertips, 7-6, in a shootout. . . . The seven-round shootout featured seven goals with F Jordan Tkatch finally winning it. . . . The Cougars scratched F Chase Witala, who was injured in Saturday’s 6-0 victory in Everett, and then lost F Jari Erricson to a headshot major and game misconduct.
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Everett F Jari Erricson is one of at least nine players who were involved in weekend incidents that will get a serious look from Richard Doerksen, the WHL’s vice-president, hockey. As part of his duties, Doerksen handles the WHL’s discipline.
And you have to think that he will be quite concerned with an opening weekend on which nine players got tossed from games with majors and game misconducts:
D Joel Edmundson, Moose Jaw, major, fighting off faceoff
F Josh Nicholls, Saskatoon, major, charging
D Mathew Dumba, Red Deer, major, check to head
F Justin Kirsch, Moose Jaw, major, checking from behind
F Andrew Johnson, Moose Jaw, major, charging
F Kale Kessy, Medicine Hat, major, check to head
D Spencer Galbraith, Lethbridge, major, check to head
F Ty Rattie, Portland, major, cross-checking
F Jari Erricson, major, headshot
Of that bunch, Rattie, Edmundson, Kirsch, Dumba and Nicholls all received ‘tbd’ suspensions on the weekend. Rattie and Dumba already have sat out one game.
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TWEET OF THE DAY:
Sunaya Sapurji (@sunayas), of Yahoo! Sports: “Red Wings Sr. VP Jim Devellano is at the Hershey Centre this afternoon to watch the young calves before they become full-grown cattle. #NHL”
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