Pulock into Wheaties' record book

THE MacBETH REPORT:
F Sami Sandell (Brandon, 2004-06) signed a one-year-plus-option extension with Ilves Tampere (Finland, Liiga). This season, he is second on the team in scoring, with 30 points, including 10 goals, in 43 games.
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JUST NOTES:
D Ryan Pulock of the Brandon Wheat Kings scored his 61st career goal on Saturday, tying him with the late Brad McCrimmon for the franchise record for most career goals by a defenceman. . . . Pulock also became the fifth defenceman in Wheat Kings history to reach 200 points, joining McCrimmon, Cam Plante, Justin Kurtz and Burke Henry. . . .
The Saskatoon Blades have brought in G Brandon Kegler from the Edmonton-based midget AAA Knights of Columbus Pats. Kegler, from Leduc, Alta., was the Blades’ second pick in the 2012 bantam draft, going to them in the fourth round. . . . Kegler’s services are needed to back up Troy Trombley after Alex Moodie was injured on Saturday night during a 6-3 loss to the visiting Victoria Royals. Moodie was returning to action after sitting out 12 games with a groin injury, when he went down with an undisclosed injury and didn’t come out for the third period. . . .
The Seattle Thunderbirds have added F Lane Pederson to their roster. Pederson, a fifth-round pick in the 2012 bantam draft, played this season with the midget AAA Saskatoon Blazers, for whom he had 41 points, including 21 gaols, in 37 games. With the Blazers’ season having ended, Pederson has joined the Thunderbirds. . . .
F Sam Reinhart of the Kootenay Ice goes into this week riding a 20-game point streak, the longest in the WHL this season. The franchise record of 21 is held by F Mike Comrie (Sept. 23 to Nov. 10, 2000). . . . Reinhart also has at least one assist in each of his last 13 games. He has broken the previous franchise record of eight games. . . . F Nic Petan of the Portland Winterhawks has the longest assist streak this season. At 14 games, it is still alive. . . . The Ice visits the Moose Jaw Warriors on Wednesday; the Winterhawks, who were given Monday and Tuesday off, meet the Chiefs in Spokane on Friday.
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IF THE PLAYOFFS BEGAN TODAY:
Eastern Conference
Calgary (1) vs. Prince Albert (8)
Regina (2) vs. Brandon (7)
Edmonton (3) vs. Swift Current (6)
Medicine Hat (4) vs. Kootenay (5)
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Western Conference
Kelowna (1) vs. Tri-City (8)
Portland (2) vs. Everett (7)
Victoria (3) vs. Vancouver (6)
Seattle (4) vs. Spokane (5)
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TUESDAY’S WHL GAMES (all times local):
Lethbridge at Regina, 7 p.m.
Moose Jaw at Saskatoon, 7:05 p.m.
Edmonton at Medicine Hat, 7 p.m.
Prince George at Kelowna, 7:05 p.m.
Prince Albert at Seattle, 7:05 p.m.
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MONDAY’S GAMES:
None scheduled.
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TWEET OF THE DAY:
From Kevin Paul DuPont (@GlobeKPD) of the Boston Globe: “Robocall just now tells me FBI says there is a home break-in every 15 seconds in USA. In Canada, Carey Price stops 'em all.”

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THE MacBETH REPORT:

F Stanislav Balan (Portland, 2005-06) has been assigned on loan by Zlin (Czech Republic, Extraliga) to Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic, Extraliga) for at least the start of next season. Balan had 16 goals and 31 assists in 43 games for Poprad (Slovakia, Extraliga) this season. . . .




F Sami Sandell (Brandon, 2004-06) signed a one-year plus option contract with Ilves Tampere (Finland, SM-Liiga). He had three goals and five assists in 40 games with Luleå (Sweden, Elitserien) this season. . . .




D Tomas Slovak (Kelowna, 2001-03) signed a one-year contract extension with Plzen (Czech Republic, Extraliga). He had four goals and seven assists in 27 games with Plzen this season.
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1. Well, if you didn’t have a dog in either hunt that was a wasted evening of TV viewing. The Boston Bruins blew out the host Pittsburgh Penguins and after two games hold a 9-1 edge in goals, while the Miami Heat picked apart the visiting Indiana Pacers in Game 7 of an NBA division final. . . . An evening that began with much promise, when pfffft in a hurry.
2. Beth Bragg of the Anchorage Daily News reports that the U of Alaska-Anchorage is down to six finalists as it searches for a new head coach for its hockey team. Her story is right here, and it includes all six names, which is kind of interesting. . . . Can’t you just see a WHL team allowing its fans to follow along as it searches for a head coach!
3. With the Prince Albert Raiders having hired Cory Clouston as head coach, there now are two WHL teams — the Everett Silvertips and Lethbridge Hurricanes — who still have vacancies in that position.
4. The Hurricanes are the only team in the 22-team league without a head coach and a logo.
5. A few years ago, I got an email from a hockey fan named Bill Motiuk. He had put a lot of thought into hockey’s loser point — in many leagues, including the WHL, a team losing a game in overtime or a shootout receives one point. In brief, Motiuk proposed right here that a winner in regulation time be given three points, with two points going to an OT winner and one to a shootout winner. The loser wouldn’t get anything.
The more I thought about it, the more I liked it. Of course, the powers-that-be have yet to see the light.
Recently, I received another email from Motiuk, this time with “something for hockey fans to throw around in the down time between playoff series.”
And rather than have me explain it, here he is . . .
“How would the game change if a team getting a power play with less than two minutes left in a period had the option of taking the penalty at the time of the call or at the start of the next period?
“Why the option?
“As it stands now, the penalty and subsequent power play are not really for two minutes. For example, it could be a 45-second power play in one period and a one-minute 15-second power play in the next period.
“The amount of time allotted to the power play in each period currently depends on or at what time after the 18 minute-mark the penalty was called. How often is a goal scored at the end of a period on a penalty called at 19:30 of the period? That 30 seconds is probably the easiest bit of time to kill.
“Even if you have the momentum and are pressing on the power play, the clock puts a stop to that even though you have 90 of PP time left. And when the next period begins the faceoff is at centre ice where if you lose the draw another few seconds are lost.
“As it stands now the team taking a penalty with fewer than two minutes to play in a period faces less of a challenge than it would if that same penalty were called with two or more minutes remaining in the period.
“Adopting my suggestion would most likely change a dynamic in coaching. The ability of the coach would become more evident as to his effect on the outcome of a game. Does the coach accept the time of the penalty when called to continue his team’s momentum (if his team has it) or does he go to the dressing room and draw up a plan to exploit any weaknesses he may have observed? As well, when a new period begins, his players will be rested and the ice will be fresh.
“Of course, the other team also will be rested. So does he give the opposing team a chance to re-group?
“The score at the end of the period would be another variable. Heading toward overtime near the end of the third period would also add another dynamic. Does he try to win in regulation time and deny the other team a single point or does he gamble and carry the full two-minute penalty into overtime, in a 4-on-3 situation, which has a high percentage likelihood of a power play goal and the two points?
“If he allows the penalty time to be split over the period and into overtime and the power play comes up dry, the OT becomes a toss-up as to who will win. It could all come down to who can out-coach whom?
“I’m sure a lot of people could come up many more pros and cons for this idea, but I just wanted to throw it out there to see if it raises any thoughts.”
6. I will throw out another suggestion, one that I heard Kamloops Blazers head coach Dave Hunchak mention during one of his radio appearances at the recent Memorial Cup.
If hockey really wants to increase scoring, Hunchak suggested, the nets should be enlarged, but only upwards. If they were six inches higher, putting cross-bars 54 inches off the ice, he continued, goaltenders would have to spend a lot more time standing up.
Make the goaltenders stand up more and they are able to play less butterfly, meaning the bottom of the net would be open for more scoring.
I am quick to admit that I am a traditionalist, but hockey needs more goals. It’s obvious that the equipment worn by goaltenders isn’t going to be downsized a whole lot, if at all.
So, hey, why not raise the cross-bar by six inches?
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THE COACHING GAME:
Cory Clouston is back in the game, this time as head coach of the Prince Albert Raiders. The WHL team announced Monday that it had signed Clouston to a two-year deal, with the team holding an option on a third season. . . . Clouston, a two-time WHL coach of the year while with the Kootenay Ice, is the 13th head coach in Raiders’ history. . . . He left the Ice after 2007-08 and spent a bit more than one season as head coach of the AHL’s Binghamton Senators, moving up as head coach of the NHL’s Ottawa Senators with 34 games left in 2008-09. Clouston spent two more seasons with Ottawa before being dropped, and then was head coach of the Brandon Wheat Kings for one season, going 39-28-5 in 2011-12. He was fired shortly after the season ended. . . . With the Raiders, Clouston replaces Steve Young. The Raiders announced on April 29 that they wouldn’t pick up the option on Young’s contract. . . . Associate coach Dave Manson and assistant coach Tim Leonard will work alongside Clouston. . . . Perry Bergson of the Prince Albert Daily Herald has more right here.


The ECHL’s Fort Wayne Komets are expected to name a new head coach today. They are replacing veteran coach Al Sims, who retired after the season. . . . The new coach may well be Gary Graham, a Fort Wayne native who was an assistant under Sims. 


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Tuesday . . .

Defenceman Jared Cowen (2) and his Spokane Chiefs had it
all over forward Mason Wilgosh and the Tri-City Americans
on Tuesday night in Kennewick, Wash.
(Photo by John Allen/AridAcres.com)

THE MacBETH REPORT:
F Sami Sandell (Brandon, 2004-06) signed a two-year contract with Luleå (Sweden Elitserien). He had 18 goals and 29 assists in 47 games for Troja-Ljungby (Sweden Allsvenskan) this season.
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THE CHILLIWACK-TO-VICTORIA SAGA, Chapter 33:
So . . . let’s recap.
In a deal that seems to have been in the works for a while, the Chilliwack Bruins have been sold. Presumably to Vancouver-based RG Properties who, presumably, will move the WHL franchise to Victoria.
Except that the ECHL’s Victoria Salmon Kings, who also are owned by RG Properties,  continue to occupy the Save-On Foods Memorial Centre and will do so until at least April 22, which is the date for Game 4 of their second-round best-of-seven playoff series with the Utah Grizzlies.
Presumably the Salmon Kings will be on the move as soon as their season has ended. Perhaps RG Properties has found a buyer for the ECHL franchise, or perhaps the franchise simply will suspend operations.
But what of the arena in Chilliwack that has been home to the Bruins for the last five seasons?
The latest rumour has Lower Mainland people, perhaps a group involving long-time BCHLer Harvey Smyl, purchasing the BCHL’s Quesnel Millionaires and moving that franchise to Chilliwack.
Is there any meat to that rumour?
Well, Autumn MacDonald of the Quesnel Cariboo Observer wonders why her newspaper hasn’t been able to speak with anyone involved with Millionaires’ ownership or with anyone from the BCHL office. MacDonald’s piece is right here.
What MacDonald’s piece would seem to indicate is that there now are a whole lot of people living under Maxwell Smart’s Cone of Silence. That includes the WHL office, the BCHL office, RG Properties, the Chilliwack Bruins’ majority owners, the Quesnel Millionaires’ owners . . . and let’s not forget that the entire WHL is under a gag order on this subject.
Based on that, you are allowed to jump to your own conclusions.
Not to say that all of the silence has allowed this whole mess to get completely out of control, but other rumours that have arisen over the last month involve, in no particular order . . .
1. The Prince George Cougars moving to Chilliwack.
2. The Saskatoon Blades moving to Winnipeg (if the NHL’s Phoenix Coyotes returned to Winnipeg, the AHL’s Manitoba Moose would go to Saskatoon, with the Blades then shifting to Winnipeg, or so the theory goes).
3. The Manitoba Moose moving to Seattle. (Again, only if the Coyotes return to Winnipeg.)
4. The Regina Pats moving to Chilliwack. (The Pats are involved in lease negotiations with their landlord. These negotiations, in the past, have turned nasty. So . . .)
5. The Kootenay Ice moving to Chilliwack.
6. An expansion franchise being awarded to former WHL/NHL goaltender Kelly Hrudey, who now is an analyst on Hockey Night in Canada and owns a chunk of the BCHL’s Nanaimo Clippers. Even though there isn’t an arena in Nanaimo that is close to meeting WHL standards.
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Has the WHL proven to be “morally bankrupt” in the way it has dealt with the sale of the Chilliwack Bruins? Tyler Olsen of the Chilliwack Times offers up some opinion right here.
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Eric Welsh of the Chilliwack Progress has a piece right here on how the fans who billet players are taking the news that the Bruins have been sold.
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THE COACHING GAME:
It would seem that the annual running of The Coaching Game has started early, early this year.
There already are five openings for head coaches in the NHL, where the Dallas Stars fired Marc Crawford on Tuesday. Also looking are the Florida Panthers (Peter DeBoer), Minnesota Wild (Todd Richards), New Jersey Devils (Jacques Lemaire) and Ottawa Senators (Cory Clouston). Lemaire retired (again); the others were dumped.
(After Richards was dismissed, Bruce Brothers of the St. Paul Pioneer Press put together a list of possible candidates for the Wild job. That list includes the name of Craig Hartsburg, a former Minnesota North Stars defenceman who now coaches the Everett Silvertips.)
As well, there are four head-coaching vacancies in the QMJHL, two of which were created Tuesday when the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles fired GM/head coach Mario Durocher and Clement Jodoin resigned from the Rimouski Oceanic.
Also looking are the Halifax Mooseheads and P.E.I. Rocket,
As well, the Chicoutimi Sagueneens may end up looking, should Guy Carbonneau choose not to remain in the position he took over during the season following the firing of Real Paiement.
In the OHL, the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds are without a general manager and a head coach, while the Sarnia Sting appears to have an interim head coach but no GM.
And, in the WHL, the Moose Jaw Warriors (Dave Hunchak) and Seattle Thunderbirds (Rob Sumner) are in the market.
Momma, it’s like the old song says, don’t let your babies grow up to be hockey coaches.
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The Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame has announced its class of 2011, and it is full of people with WHL connections, including Bob Cornell, Glen Lawson, Don Dietrich, Jayson More, Theo Fleury and Mike Keane.
There’s more right here.
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A note from Elliotte Friedman’s weekly 30 Thoughts:
Luke Schenn had a very interesting take on the Raffi Torres suspension: "I was taught on that play to fake reaching for the puck and then go for the hit. If that's going to be illegal, they are going to have to change the way young players are taught hockey."
Friedman’s blog is right here.
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ON THE ICE:
Wow! The Eastern Conference’s top two seeds, the Saskatoon Blades and Red Deer Rebels, are in danger of having their seasons come to an end tonight. Both teams lost on the road Tuesday night and could be swept by the Kootenay Ice and Medicine Hat Tigers, respectively, tonight. . . . And who saw that coming? . . . Meanwhile, the Western Conference semifinals are following the chalk, with the No. 1 Portland Winterhawks and No. 2 Spokane Chiefs having taken 2-1 leads. . . .
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In Cranbrook, G Nathan Lieuwen stopped 22 shots to lead the Kootenay Ice to a 3-0 victory over the Saskatoon Blades. . . . The Ice takes a 3-0 series lead into Game 4 at home tonight. . . . F Jesse Ismond got his first playoff goal on the PP at 18:34 of the first period and Lieuwen took it home from there. . . . Saskatoon G Steven Stanford was sharp, making 33 saves. . . . Ice D Brayden McNabb, who came into these playoffs with a postseason goal, got his third of this spring and added two helpers. . . . Ice F Joe Antilla continued his hot postseason, notching his sixth goal. . . . Attendance was 3,065. . . . The Blades scratched D Tanner Sohn, who had played in Game 2, and inserted F Alex Elliott. . . . Ice F Drew Czerwonka, who had missed the first two games with an injury, was back in the lineup and drew an assist on the third goal. . . . 
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In Medicine Hat, F Hunter Shinkaruk broke a 1-1 tie at 6:09 of the third period and the Tigers went on to a 3-1 victory over the Red Deer Rebels. . . . The Tigers are up 3-0 — they have outscored the Rebels 17-2 — and can wrap it up at home tonight. . . . F Kellan Tochkin gave Medicine Hat a 1-0 lead at 14:27 of the first period, with D Justin Weller equalizing at 3:13 of the third. . . . Shinkaruk’s fourth playoff goal stood up as the winner. . . . Tigers F Cole Grbavac continued his outstanding playoff with his eighth at 16:34. . . . Attendance was 4,006. . . . . Tigers G Tyler Bunz stopped 26 shots, as did Red Deer’s Darcy Kuemper. . . . Earlier in the day, Medicine Hat F Linden Vey was named the CHL’s player of the week. He had nine points in three games last week but was pointless last night. . . .
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In Kelowna, F Ryan Johansen drew three assists as the Portland Winterhawks scored a 5-4 victory over the Rockets. . . . Portland leads the series 2-1 with Game 4 in Kelowna tonight. . . . Johansen had three goals in Portland’s 6-3 victory in Game 2 and now has 13 points in seven playoff games this spring. . . . The big goal in this one came off the stick of PortlandD Tyler Wotherspoon. He broke a 3-3 tie with his first playoff goal at 18:18 of the second period, just 40 seconds after Kelowna F Brett Bulmer had pulled his side even. . . . Porltand F Nino Niederreiter scored twice, giving him six. . . . The Rockets got a goal and two assists from F Colton Sissons. . . . Portland G Mac Carruth was outstanding, with 38 saves. . . . Kelowna’s chances of winning took a hit at 8:32 of the third period. With the Rockets trailing 4-3, F Shane McColgan was penalized for hooking and then was hit with a misconduct. He is the Rockets’ leading scorer in these playoffs. . . . Portland was 3-for-10 on the PP; the Rockets were 1-for-7. . . . Attendance was 4,884 in an arena where regular-season crowds averaged better than 6,000. . . . Portland played without F Brad Ross, who served the second game of a three-game suspension for a charging major in Game 1. . . . Kelowna F Zach Franko, who was hit by Ross, didn’t play, either. . . .
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In Kennewick, Wash., G James Reid stopped 20 shots as the Spokane Chiefs dumped the host Tri-City Americans, 4-1. . . . The Chiefs hold a 2-1 lead in the series with Game 4 in Kennewick on Thursday. . . . The Chiefs jumped out to a 3-0 lead before F Neal Prokop go the Americans on the board at 12:08 of the second period. . . . F Darren Kramer, with his fourth, gave the Chiefs some insurance at 17:14 of the third. Kramer has four goals and four penalty minutes in eight playoff games; he had seven goals and 306 penalty minutes in 68 regular-season games. . . . The Americans were without veteran D Tyler Schmidt, who sat out a one-game suspension after taking a clipping major in Game 2. . . . The Chiefs held a 41-21 edge in shots. . . . Attendance was 3,667. . . . The Americans won their first five game in these playoffs, but now hae lost two in a row.
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TUESDAY’S CHECKING-FROM-BEHIND COUNT:
Four minors:
Kootenay D Joey Leach.
Kelowna F Spencer Main.
Kelowna F Jessey Astles (two minors).

gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca
     
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