Hurricanes player retires . . . Fuhr back with Pats . . . Rockets lose goalie to injury

Gordie Howe, aka Mr. Hockey, had a serious stroke on the weekend and is believed to be in failing health. Howe was stricken in Lubbock, Texas, at the home of his daughter, Cathy. Other family members spent Tuesday en route to Lubbock. Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press has more right here.
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The Moose Jaw Warriors had many people, including players, from their organization take part in a three-hour safeTALK presentation with Donna Boyer of the Canadian Mental Health Associated last week. Katie Brickman of the Moose Jaw Times-Herald sat through it and writes right here about what she heard and saw. This is important stuff.
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It's doubtful that any WHL team is delving as deeply into analytics -- aka fancy stats -- as the Saskatoon Blades. The Blades have hired Bruce Peter as their director of analytics. Daniel Nugent-Bowman takes a look right here at what Peter does and how the Blades are making use of his work.
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A shoulder problem has brought a premature end to the career of Lethbridge Hurricanes F Steven Alldridge. An 18-year-old native of Inuvik, N.W.T., Alldridge announced his retirement on Tuesday. . . . The Hurricanes acquired Alldridge, F Shane McColgan, then 20, and a second-round pick in the 2014 bantam draft from the Portland Winterhawks for G Corbin Boes, also 20, on Jan. 9. Alldridge, a Portland list player, was pointless in 24 games with the Winterhawks and 15 with the Hurricanes. He never did get into a game this season after undergoing surgery in late April.
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G Tyler Fuhr, 19, is back with the Regina Pats. Fuhr left the club in late September. “It was personal business; we’ll just leave it at that,” Fuhr told Greg Harder of the Regina Leader-Post. “It was something I had to deal with. I wanted my main focus to be on hockey and nothing distracting me. I think that was the best thing to do. Everything is resolved now.” Fuhr, who is from Sherwood Park, Alta., hasn't played for the Pats since Sept. 26. In his absence, Tyler Brown, who had been with the MJHL's Winnipeg Blues, backed up starter Daniel Wapple. . . . Harder also reports: "Work crews have started making preparations for the installation of a new centre-ice scoreboard at the Brandt Centre. The process will require significant modifications — including adjustments to catwalks, wiring and ventilation as well as structural reinforcement — so the clock can be raised into the rafters during non-hockey events. It’s hoped the new scoreboard will be in place before the New Year."
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F Dalton Sward, 20, won't play tonight as the Vancouver Giants play host to the Brandon Wheat Kings. He suffered an undisclosed injury during a Saturday game with the host Victoria Royals. . . . The Giants also will be missing F Tyler Benson and F Ryely McKinstry, both of whom leave today for the U-17 World Hockey Challenge in the Sarnia, Ont., area. . . . That will allow F Brendan Semchuk to make his WHL debut. Semchuk, from Kamloops, was the 10th overall pick in the 2014 bantam draft. Semchuk is playing at the Okanagan Hockey Academy in Penticton, B.C. . . . Steve Ewen of the Vancouver Province has more on the Giants right here.
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TUESDAY'S REPORT:

In Victoria, D Ryan Pilon broke a 2-2 tie at 11:34 of the third period to lift the Brandon Wheat Kings to a 3-2 victory over the Royals. . . . Pilon has three goals this season. . . . The Wheat Kings, who play the Giants in Vancouver tonight, are 3-1-0 on a seven-game road trip. . . . Victoria F Axel Blomqvist had tied the game 2-2 at 16:55 of the second period with his fifth goal. . . . Czech F Richard Nejezchleb, playing in his first game of the season for Brandon, scored a PP goal in the first period. . . . Nejezchleb returned from the AHL's Hartford Wolf Pack and had to serve a two-game suspension left over from last spring's playoffs. Nejezchleb, 20, led the Wheat Kings with 32 goals last season, but his presence gives Brandon three imports. Either he, Latvian Rihards Bukharts, the team's leading scorer who didn't play last night, or freshman Russian D Ivan Provorov will be traded or released over the next few days. . . . Provorov, 17, had two assists last night. . . . Rob Henderson of the Brandon Sun has a game story right here. . . .

In Saskatoon, G Nik Amundrud made 30 saves to help the Blades to a 5-2 victory over the Moose Jaw Warriors. . . . F Ryan Graham led the Blades with a goal, his second, and two assists. . . . F Brayden Point scored twice for the Warriors, giving him eight on the season. . . . Saskatoon was 2-for-6 on the PP. . . . Saskatoon had F Nick Zajac back after he missed four games with a shoulder injury. . . . The Warriors, who were playing their fourth game in five nights, now have lost four in a row. They have scored five goals over their last five games. . . . Daniel Nugent-Bowman of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix has a gamer right here. . . .

In Red Deer, the Rebels scored the game's last three goals and beat the Medicine Hat Tigers, 5-3. . . . Rebels F Grayson Pawlenchuk tied the game 3-3 at 18:01 of the second period, with his fifth goal, and D Devan Fafard broke the tie, with his second, at 6:45 of the third. . . . Red Deer F Wyatt Johnson added insurance with his seventh goal. He's on a three-game goal streak. . . . F Trevor Cox drew three assists for the Tigers (11-2-1), while F Cole Sanford scored his ninth goal. . . . Medicine Hat F Chad Butcher picked up an assist as he ran his point streak to 10 games, the longest in the league this season. . . . Besides losing the game, the Tigers lost a tire. Here’s a late-night tweet from Bob Ridley, the bus-driving radio man: “On way home. May take a few hrs longer. Flat tire on Q.E . 2 at Olds turnoff. Waiting for help.” . . .

In Cranbrook, G Nick McBride posted his first WHL shutout to lead the Prince Albert Raiders to a 5-0 victory over the Kootenay Ice. . . . McBride stopped 29 shots. . . . The Ice has been blanked three times this season and has scored only five goals in five home games. . . . D Josh Morrissey had a goal, his third, and two assists for the Raiders, while F Craig Leverton and F Jayden Hart each scored his sixth goal. . . . Hart, who had one goal in his first seven games, is riding a five-game goal streak. . . . Ice G Wyatt Hoflin stopped 41 shots. . . . At 3-12-0, the Ice is off to its worst start in franchise history. . . . The Ice, already without F Tim Bozon and F Jon Martin with undisclosed injuries, has lost D Tyler King for up to three weeks with an undisclosed injury. . . . Taylor Rocca of the Cranbrook Daily Townsman has a gamer right here.
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Bruce Luebke, the veteran radio voice of the Brandon Wheat Kings, reported Tuesday that freshman D Ivan Provorov will play for the Russian side during the Subway Super Series. The Russians will play a WHL team on Nov. 10 in Saskatoon and Nov. 11 in Brandon. . . .

Regan Bartel, who calls the play of Kelowna Rockets’ games, tweeted Tuesday that G Jake Morrissey “was hurt in practice” and that they “have brought in” Michael Herringer, 18, to back up Jackson Whistle. . . . Herringer was traded by the Victoria Royals to the Saskatoon Blades on Sept. 17. However, the Blades later dropped Herringer from their list when they acquired G Nik Amundrud, 17, from the Everett Silvertips.
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Elliotte Friedman leads off with something about the Toronto Maple Leafs in his latest edition of 30 Thoughts. . . . It’s right here.
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Thoughts and best wishes are with Gordie Howe and his family tonight #getwellsoon pic.twitter.com/VuyeBtiy8o
— Hunter Shinkaruk (@H_S_9) October 29, 2014

My dad introduced me to Mr. Howe years ago Dad: This is my son Scott. Robbie's brother. Gordie: This one grow up closer to the fridge, Bob?
— Scott Brown (@BrownieScott) October 29, 2014

Analytics creeping into WHL . . . Cougars hire assistant coach

While a lot of hockey people are jumping on the analytics bandwagon these days, the Saskatoon Blades appear to have gotten something of a head start.
The Blades went through an ownership change a year ago, one that had Edmonton-based Mike Priestner and his son, Colin, purchase the franchise from Jack Brodsky and family members.
Almost immediately, Colin Priestner, who is the franchise’s managing partner, brought in Bruce Peter, who volunteered to provide the Blades with something more than the usual in the way of numbers.
“I believe we were the only team in the league using one last season,” Priestner told Taking Note via email. “I hear a few others are now, too.”
Peter, a long-time Blades fan from Outlook, Sask., is back with the Blades and, according to Priestner, will have an even bigger role this season.
“I found it to be an excellent resource last season,” Priestner explained, “and this season we hope to have regular meetings with Bruce and his new apprentice -- a grad student in economics wants to help him -- and our hockey ops to review trends and outliers.”
Just what do the Blades get from Peter?
“His work is awesome and the amount of data he provides us is amazing,” Priestner said. “He does every home game for us.
“He uses his own sheets to track stats. We get everything from everyone's head-to-head faceoff wins to Corsi to Fenwick to offensive-zone entries, defensive-zone entries and scoring chances and drawn penalties.”
To have even one team doing this is a huge step forward for the WHL. After all, this is a league that, as Cam Charron, then of Yahoo! Sports Canada, wrote a year ago, “is a league that publishes very little information via its box scores.” Charron, as of earlier in August, now works for the Toronto Maple Leafs in the NHL’s team’s three-man analytics department.
To give you some idea of the kind of information Priestner is looking for and what he and Peter are up against, here’s more from Charron a year ago:
“Analytics are tricky in the WHL. The NHL in 2007 began publishing play-by-play sheets that didn't just record when shots, hits and giveaways occurred, but also which players were on the ice for each event. That sort of information has been transformed into several different categories, the chief of which is the Corsi number, a plus-minus number that factors in every shot attempt for and against when a player was on the ice.
“Since Corsi is a team statistic, work has been done to attempt to separate a player's individual contribution to his team's Corsi number. Because of the number of games in the WHL and the limited availability of information, coming up with a Corsi number and putting it in the appropriate context is impossible.”
A lot of Peter’s analysis features zone entries and exits, and, as Charron pointed out, that is something that can be done “by a single person sitting high up in the arena,” or by someone watching video with a remote control in hand.
It should be pointed out that the Kelowna Rockets also are beginning to delve into the area of analytics. Larry Fisher of the Kelowna Daily Courier has a story on that right here.
One interesting thing about all of this is that there have long been conversations about the validity of various statistics that are kept by the home team-provided stats crews in WHL arenas. In Kelowna and Vancouver, for example, the shots on goal are often questioned by visiting teams. In Kamloops, then-head coach Guy Charron of the Blazers once had a loud one-sided conversation on that very subject with his own statistical crew.
Last week, one WHL insider told Taking Note that there is a “big question mark at our level regarding the accuracy of information. Without that, you don’t have good data.”
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The WHL is using the exhibition season to experiment with a dry scrape of the entire ice surface between the third period and overtime of those games requiring extra time.
It seems that this has been met with mixed reaction. For one thing, the break during a game in Moose Jaw last week was 12 minutes in duration. The ensuing OT period lasted 34 seconds.
As one individual with knowledge of the ice-making and -maintaining process told me Saturday: “Why an entire dry scrape? Forget the scrape and flood then.”
Prior to now, teams went straight from the third period to OT with just a brief intermission. Then, if a game needed a shootout, a dry scrape that took in the middle of the ice was done. This can be done in three or four minutes. That time now has been at least doubled. So why not do a complete flood?
“The timing of a two-Zamboni flood without on-ice promotions to avoid should be 10 minutes tops -- five minutes for the flood and five minutes drying time,” this person stated. “I guess you could shave the dry time to to 2.5 minutes, depending on conditions.”
He also pointed out that “shaving that layer also could lead to ice issues down the road depending on teams’ flood schedules.”
Interestingly, a game in Everett between the Seattle Thunderbirds and Victoria Royals went to OT on Saturday night. Andy Eide, who covers the Thunderbirds for ESPN 710, tweeted that he asked Seattle head coach Steve Konowalchuk “how he enjoyed the pre-OT ice scrape?”
Konowalchuk’s response: “No comment.”
I don't know how long the dry scrape took, but Seattle won the game, 5-4, on an Ethan Bear goal at 2:20 of OT.
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Roman Vopat, who was a guest coach in camp with the Prince George Cougars, has been added to the team’s coaching staff on a full-time basis. Vopat (Moose Jaw, Prince Albert, 1994-96) was a seventh-round pick by the St. Louis Blues in the 1994 NHL draft and went on to a 16-year pro career. . . . The 38-year-old native of Litvinov, Czech Republic, has coaching experience with the junior B Kimberley Dynamiters of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League. . . . With the Cougars, he will work alongside head coach Mark Holick and assistant coach Mike Hengen. . . . “Roman and I go way back to our playing days, and he also played with my brother Brett for many years,” Todd Harkins, the Cougars’ general manager, said in a news release. “He was a great teammate, cared about everyone in the room and played the game with passion.” . . . Harkins added: “Roman joined us at training camp as a guest coach and impressed all of us with his excitement and professionalism, and his past experience will be beneficial to all of our players who have a dream to play in the NHL. He’s well connected with teams and scouts in Europe, and that will serve us well down the road with the CHL import draft.”
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Carl Cirullo, a familiar face in Spokane hockey circles, has died. He was 87 when he lost his fight with lung cancer on Thursday. . . . Chris Derrick of the Spokane Spokesman-Review has more right here.
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Sorry, Las Vegas. Oh, and you, too, Seattle. But you just don’t have enough NHL fans to make a franchise viable. Cities like Kingston, Halifax and Sudbury might be able to support a team, though. At least, that’s the way Neil Paine of FiveThirtyEight has it figured in a piece that is right here.
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If you’re a regular here, you will know that organ donation is kind of near and dear to me, especially when it involves a kidney. Gregg Doyel, a national columnist for cesspits.com, has the story right here of a college basketball coach who now has three kidneys inside his body. . . . If you read anything today, make it this one.

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