Sunday, December 4, 2016

Guhle sharp in Buffalo . . . Ice, Americans deal . . . Big night for Zborovskiy as Pats win


———
Rick Westhead of TSN has reported that there are 351 active and former CHL players involved in the lawsuit that has been filed against the CHL looking for status as a class action. In an affidavit filed in Ontario Superior Court on Nov. 25, lawyer Brendan O’Grady wrote that “we continue to receive registrations on a daily basis.” . . . Westhead writes that “119 players from the Western Hockey League have signed up for the litigation, ‘including a number of registrants who are currently playing for WHL clubs.’ Of those 119 current and former players, 13 come from the Moose Jaw Warriors and another 13 from the Saskatoon Blades. Twelve current and former Red Deer Rebels players have signed up.” . . . Westhead’s latest lawsuit-related story is right here.
——
Defencemen Cody Franson (6) and Brendan Guhle of the
Buffalo Sabres were paired together on Saturday.(Photo: nhl.com)
D Brendan Guhle did A-OK in his NHL debut with the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday afternoon. The Sabres dropped a 2-1 decision to the Boston Bruins, with Guhle having a team-high seven shot attempts and playing 16 minutes 20 seconds. Guhle, who plays for the WHL’s Prince George Cougars, found out Friday that the Sabres were bringing him up under emergency recall rules. He arrived in Buffalo on Saturday at 1 a.m.; game time was 1 p.m. . . . Guhle was paired with former WHL D Cody Franson, who told Jourdon LaBarber of Sabres.com: "On puck retrievals, in the offensive zone, he was moving around like he was playing in juniors. Coming into D-zone situations he was comfortable, he was talking, and you couldn't ask for more out of that from a kid coming from juniors.” . . . For more, including a couple of video clips, LaBarber’s piece is right here. . . . The Sabres play again Monday night as they visit the Washington Capitals.
——
The Kootenay Ice acquired D Kurtis Rutledge, 19, from the Tri-City Americans in a deal announced following the end of Saturday night’s games. The Ice gave up a seventh round 2019 bantam draft pick in the exchange. . . . From Calgary, Rutledge was an eighth-round pick by the Americans in the 2012 bantam draft. A 6-foot-0, 200-pounder, he has two goals and two assists in 20 games this season. Last season, he had a goal and six assists in 56 games with Tri-City.
——
If you’ve got a comment, some information you would like to pass along, or if you just want to say hello, feel free to contact me at greggdrinnan@gmail.com.
If you would like to donate to the cause, please visit the bottom of this post and go right ahead.
———


———

SATURDAY’S GAMES:

At Kamloops, the Blazers scored the game’s last three goals as they beat the Vancouver Giants, 5-2. . . .
RUDOLFS BALCERS
D Ondrej Vala’s sixth goal of the season was the Teddy Bear Goal, giving the Blazers a 1-0 lead at 10:38 of the first period. . . . Vancouver F James Malm tied it at 13:10. He’s got seven goals. . . . F Rudolfs Balcers (17) scored a PP goal at 2:46 of the second period to give the Blazers a 2-1 lead. . . . Vancouver F Thomas Foster (15) got that one back at 4:14. . . . Kamloops F Deven Sideroff broke the 2-2 tie with his 15th goal, on a PP, at 14:08, and F Spencer Bast (5) added insurance at 16:05. . . . F Quinn Benjafield (7) put it away with an empty-netter at 18:29 of the third. . . . The score was 2-2 in the second period when the Giants failed to score on a 5-on-3 PP that lasted 1:04. Shortly thereafter, the Blazers scored twice — Sideroff and Bast getting the goals — to take control. . . . Balcers and Sideroff each had an assist. . . . Kamloops G Connor Ingram stopped 15 shots, while Vancouver’s Ryan Kubic turned aside 28. . . . Kamloops was 2-4 on the PP; Vancouver was 0-4. . . . The Blazers (16-12-1) have won two in a row. . . . The Giants (11-17-2) were 1-0-2 in their previous three games. . . . The Giants were without F Radovan Bondra, who was injured during Friday’s 2-1 OT victory over the visiting Brandon Wheat Kings. Bondra suffered a hip/thigh injury when Brandon D James Shearer rode him out of the play and one of the gates at a players’ bench opened. The Giants are hopeful that he will be back in action in three or four days. . . . Announced attendance: 4,370, the largest crowd of the season.
——

At Kelowna, F Nick Merkley scored twice to help the Rockets to a 3-1 victory over the Brandon Wheat
NICK MERKLEY
Kings. . . . Merkley opened the scoring with the Teddy Bear Goal at 6:54 of the second period. . . . He made it 2-0 with his eighth goal of the season, on a PP, at 14:34. . . . F Jake Kryski (6) upped the lead to 3-0 with another PP goal, this one at 1:42 of the third period. . . . Brandon’s goal came from F Ty Lewis (16), at 13:03 of the third. Lewis also came up short on a third-period penalty shot. . . . Kelowna got two assists from D Cal Foote. . . . G Brodan Salmond made 17 saves for the Rockets, while Brandon’s Jordan Papirny stopped 33 shots. . . . Kelowna was 2-8 on the PP; Brandon was 0-4. . . . The Rockets (16-11-1) are 3-0-1 in their past four games. . . . The Wheat Kings (13-10-4) are 1-1-1 on a B.C. Division swing that continues today in Kamloops. . . . The Wheat Kings lost F Baron Thompson to a headshot major and game misconduct as the second period ended. . . . Besides being without F Nolan Patrick, the Wheat Kings also scratched F Reid Duke, who played in Friday’s 2-1 loss to the host Vancouver Giants but may have been injured in a third-period fight with F Thomas Foster. . . . Announced attendance: 5,546.
——
At Moose Jaw, F Noah Gregor had two goals and three assists to lead the Warriors to a wild 7-5 victory
NOAH GREGOR
over the Calgary Hitmen. . . . The Warriors actually held a 5-3 lead late in the third period, only to have Calgary tie it on goals fry F Matteo Gennaro,  his eighth, on a PP, at 16:01, and D Jake Bean, his first, at 17:14. . . . Gregor, who has 12 goals, snapped the 5-5 tie at 17:40 and F Luka Burzan added insurance with his ninth goal at 18:38. That was Burzan’s second goal of the game. . . . The Warriors got a goal and two assists from D Josh Brook, who has two goals, F Jayden Halbgewachs (21) and F Brett Howden (12) each had a goal and an assist, while F Brayden Burke drew four assists. . . . Halbgewachs moved into a tie for the WHL goal-scoring lead, along with F Zak Zborosky of the Kootenay Ice and Tyler Steenbergen of the Swift Current Broncos. . . . Calgary F Jordy Stallard had two assists, while Bean added one to his goal. F Carsen Twarynski (8) also had a goal and an assist. . . . G Zach Sawchenko stopped 35 shots for the Warriors, one fewer than Calgary’s Kyle Dumba. . . . Moose Jaw was 2-3 on the PP; Calgary was 1-3. . . . The Warriors are 16-6-4. . . . The Hitmen (8-14-2) have lost five in a row. . . . Warriors D Matt Sozanski left in the second period of Friday’s 5-3 loss to the host Prince Albert Raiders. A doctor was called to the Moose Jaw dressing room during the intermission. Later, Warriors head coach Tim Hunter suggested that “somebody’s got a hangnail and I don’t know why they’d send a doctor over for it.” Well, that hangnail kept Sozanski out of Saturday’s game. . . . Actually, the 20-year-old defenceman is believed to have a shoulder injury. . . . Announced attendance: 3,239.
——

At Portland, the Kootenay Ice, with G Payton Lee blocking 55 shots, built up a 3-0 lead and hung on for a
PAYTON LEE
3-2 victory over the Winterhawks. . . .The Ice (6-17-7) had been 0-4-1 in its previous five games. It now is 3-9-3 on the road. . . . The Winterhawks (15-13-1) had been 7-0-1 in their previous eight games. . . . F Vince Loschiavo gave the visitors a 1-0 lead at 8:05 of the first period, and D Dallas Hines (2) made it 2-0, on a PP, at 13:32. . . . F Zak Zborosky moved into a tie for the WHL goal-scoring lead with his 21st goal, for a 3-0 lead, at 8:08 of the second period. . . . The home side got on the scoreboard when F Keegan Iverson (11) scored on a PP, at 16:09 of the second. . . . Portland D Henri Jokiharju (4) cut the deficit to one at 16:05, on another PP. . . . Kootenay got three assists from F Matt Alfaro. . . . D Caleb Jones had two assists for the Winterhawks. . . . Portland got 21 saves from G Cole Kehler. . . . The Winterhawks were 2-8 on the PP; the Ice was 1-3. . . . Announced attendance: 4,535.
——
At Prince George, the Victoria Royals took a 2-0 second-period lead and hung on for a 2-1 victory over
RYAN PECKFORD
the Cougars. . . . One night earlier, the Cougars had posted a 4-2 victory. . . . D Mitchell Prowse gave the Royals a 1-0 lead with his second goal, at 1:31 of the second period. . . . F Ryan Peckford (8) upped it to 2-0, on a PP, at 8:47. . . . F Jack Walker drew an assist on both goals. . . . The Cougars halved the deficit when F Kody McDonald (7) scored at 5:49 of the third period. . . . The Royals got 31 stops from G Griffen Outhouse. . . . Ty Edmonds stopped 26 shots for the Cougars. . . . Victoria was 1-5 on the PP; Prince George was 0-7. . . . The Royals (15-13-2) snapped out of a four-game losing skid. . . . The Cougars (20-7-2) had won their last two games. . . . For the second game in a row, the Cougars were without D Brendan Guhle. He was recalled by the Buffalo Sabres on Friday and made his NHL debut against the visiting Boston Bruins on Saturday afternoon. . . . The Royals lost D Ryan Gagnon to a charging major and game misconduct at 4:50 of the first period. . . . Announced attendance: 3,807.
——

At Red Deer, F Brandon Hagel scored at 1:50 of OT to give the Rebels a 3-2 victory over the Lethbridge
BRANDON HAGEL
Hurricanes. . . . Hagel has 14 goals in 28 games. Last season, as a freshman, he finished with 13 goals in 72 games. . . . F Adam Musil, Red Deer’s captain, scored the Teddy Bear Goal, giving his guys a 1-0 lead at 14:27 of the first period. . . . Musil made it 2-0 with his 11th goal, at 11:42 of the second period. He has five goals in his last three games. . . . The Hurricanes tied it on third-period goals from F Tanner Nagel (3), just 21 seconds in, and F Giorgio Estaphan (15), at 17:29. . . . Red Deer F Michael Spacek drew two assists, as did D Colton Bobyk, who now is on a 13-game assist streak. . . . F Tyler Wong had two assists for Lethbridge. . . . G Lasse Petersen blocked 22 shots for Red Deer, five fewer than Lethbridge’s Stuart Skinner. . . . Lethbridge was 1-4 on the PP; Red Deer was 0-3. . . . The Rebels now are 14-12-4. . . . The Hurricanes (13-11-4) had won their previous six games. . . . Announced attendance: 5,075.
——

The Pats handed out about 1,000 Dale
Derkatch bobbleheads last night.
At Regina, D Sergey Zborovskiy scored two goals and assisted on five others as the Pats dropped the
SERGEY ZBOROVSKIY
Prince Albert Raiders, 12-2. . . . Zborovskiy, who was plus-8, leads the WHL at plus-37, in only 21 games. He has five goals and 18 assists, after finishing last season with eight goals and 17 assists in 64 games. He is in his third season with Regina. . . . The Pats scored four goals in each period. . . . F Adam Brooks, the WHL’s reigning scoring champion, finished with two goals and three assists. He now has a WHL-leading 43 points, including 11 goals. Last night, he passed teammate Sam Steel, who has 41 points but has missed his club’s last three games. He suffered a shoulder injury against the Prince George Cougars with two games left on a B.C. Division tour. . . . Brooks also is riding a WHL-high 18-game point streak, having picked up at least one in every game he played this season. . . . "We haven’t been home in a while and probably didn’t play up to standard on that road trip," Brooks told Greg Harder of the Regina Leader-Post. "We wanted to prove to everyone that we’re still a good team and we’re still one of the teams to beat, if not THE team to beat. This game kind of showed that we’re an elite level hockey team.” . . . This was Regina’s first game since returning from a six-game (3-2-1) trek that included five games in the B.C. Division. They scored only seven goals over the last three games of that trip. . . . D Jonathan Smart, acquired by Regina from the Kelowna Rockets earlier in the week, had two assists and was plus-5 in his Pats debut. . . . The Pats also got three assists from F Filip Ahl, two goals and an assist from F Austin Wagner (13), two goals from F Rykr Cole (4), a goal and an assist from F Nick Henry (12), two assists from F Jake Leschyshyn, and a goal and an assist from F Riley Woods (3). . . . F Austin Glover scored his eighth goal and added an assist for the Raiders. . . . Regina G Tyler Brown stopped 14 shots. . . . Prince Albert starter Nick Sanders allowed five goals on 20 shots in 31:14. Ian Scott finished up by allowing seven goals on 27 shots. . . . Regina was 1-3 on the PP; Prince Albert was 1-4. . . . Regina (18-2-4) has points in three straight (2-0-1). . . . Prince Albert now is 6-21-1. . . . The Pats lost two plays to undisclosed injuries with F Lane Zablocki leaving in the first period and D Chase Harrison in the second. . . . Announced attendance: 5,749.

——
At Kent, Wash., F Ryan Gropp and F Donovan Neuls each scored twice to help the Seattle Thunderbirds
RYAN GROPP
to a 7-1 victory over the Medicine Hat Tigers. . . . Seattle (15-9-3) is 4-0-1 in its last five games. . . . The Tigers (21-7-1) have followed a 10-game winning streak with back-to-back losses. . . . Seattle took control of this one with three first-period goals, the first two by Gropp, who has eight. . . . D Ethan Bear made it 3-0 with his 10th goal at 17:57. . . . Bear and Gropp both are on five-game goal-scoring streaks. . . . Seattle F Mathew Barzal had three assists for the fourth time in five games. . . . Seattle F Scott Eansor had a goal and an assist. He has 14 goals in 27 games, equalling his career high from 2014-15 when he scored 14 times in 72 games. . . . The Thunderbirds got three assists from F Matthew Wedman, while Bear added an assist to his goal, and F Nolan Volcan picked up his 11th goal and added an assist. . . . Seattle D Turner Ottenbreit had one assist and was plus-5. . . . The Thunderbirds got 25 saves from G Rylan Toth, who lost his shutout bid when F Max Gerlach got No. 19 at 14:25 of the third period. . . . Medicine Hat starter Duncan McGovern surrendered six goals on 27 shots through two periods. Nick Schneider gave up one goal on eight shots in third period. . . . Seattle was 0-3 on the PP; Medicine Hat was 0-4. . . . Neuls, who has seven goals, was in the lineup after leaving Friday’s 4-3 OT victory over the visiting Kootenay Ice with an apparent leg injury. . . . The Tigers were without F Zach Fischer, who drew a TBD suspension for being involved in a one-man fight against the host Everett Silvertips on Friday night. The last suspension for such an incident occurred Nov. 4 when D Sam Ruopp of the Prince George Cougars was hit with eight games. . . . With Fischer out, the Tigers brought in F Josh Williams, 15, from Langley, B.C. The 6-foot-1, 180-pound Williams, the fifth overall selection in the 2016 bantam draft, plays at the Yale Hockey Academy in Abbotsford. . . . Announced attendance: 5,009.
——
At Kennewick, Wash., the Tri-City Americans erased a 1-0 deficit with three straight goals and were never
JORDAN TOPPING
caught as they beat the Spokane Chiefs, 6-5. . . . F Ethan McIndoe’s fifth goal, at 8:07 of the first period, gave the Chiefs a 1-0 edge. . . . The Americans got the next three goals, from F Tyler Sandhu (6), on a PP, at 12:37; F Jordan Topping (1), on a PP, at 3:03 of the second period; and D Juuso Valimaki (11), at 6:52. . . . The teams alternated goals from then to game’s end, with the Chiefs never able to equalize. . . . McIndoe got his second goal, at 9:59 of the second, but the Americans got that one back when F Kyle Olson (8) scored at 10:32. . . . F Keanu Yamamoto (11), on a PP, got Spokane to within one again, at 13:21, but the Americans came right back on a goal by F Nolan Yaremko (3), at 15:14. . . . Spokane F Pavel Kousal (7) made it 5-4 at 17:20. . . . Tri-City F Morgan Geekie’s 12th goal, at 16:19 of the third period, proved to be the winner. . . . Spokane again got to within one, as D Evan Fiala (2) scored at 17:16. . . . Topping, in his first game of the season, also had two assists. He had been out since suffering an undisclosed injury while in camp with the NHL’s Dallas Stars. . . . Tri-City D Dylan Coghlan had three assists, while Geekie had two. . . . The Chiefs got three assists from F Hudson Elynuik, with McIndoe and Fiala getting one each. . . . G Rylan Parenteau made 24 saves for Tri-City. . . . Spokane’s Jayden Sittler stopped 26 shots. . . . The Chiefs were 2-5 on the PP; the Americans were 1-2. . . . Tri-City (17-11-2) had lost its previous two games. . . . The Chiefs now are 11-11-5. . . . Announced attendance: 3,838.
——

TEDDY BEAR, TOQUE AND MITTEN TOSS GAMES:

Nov. 26: D Micheal Zipp, 19:47 1st period, Lethbridge 4 at Calgary 2.
Dec. 2: D Artyom Minulin, 13:24 1st period, Calgary 1 at Swift Current 5.
Dec. 2: F Jordy Bellerive, 14:00 1st period, Red Deer 3 at Lethbridge 5.
Dec. 3: F Adam Musil, 14:27 1st period, Lethbridge 2 at Red Deer 3 (OT).
Dec. 3: D Ondrej Vala, 10:38 1st period, Vancouver 2 at Kamloops 5.
Dec. 3: F Nick Merkley, 6:54 2nd period, Brandon 1 at Kelowna 3.
——

SUNDAY’S GAMES (all times local):

Brandon at Kamloops, 5 p.m.
Medicine Hat at Portland, 5 p.m.
Regina at Swift Current, 4 p.m.

There has never been a subscription fee for this blog, but if you enjoy stopping by here, why not consider donating to the cause? Just click HERE. . . and thank you very much.
PhotobucketPhotobucketPhotobucket
Posted by Gregg Drinnan at 12:25 AM
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

  © Design byThirteen Letter

Back to TOP