Friday notes

One minor trade yesterday, as Chilliwack has shipped 18 year old defenceman Cam Stevens to Lethbridge for a 7th round bantam pick. Stevens was one of Chilliwack's original expansion draft selections, but has not played this year due to an offseason broken leg.

The WHL beat the Russians 4-1 last night to conclude the thrilling annual CHL-Russia series. Oh, how I long to be able to rewrite that last sentence to end with with "forever".

Pre-arranged fighting

Here's some numbers in an attempt to answer an e-mailed question from a reader....many WHL fans know that Vancouver's Garet Hunt was suspended earlier this year for fighting off the opening faceoff of a game too many times. Seems the league is trying to crack down on those kind of pre-arranged fights where guys agree beforehand that they're going to fight at the drop of the puck. So, who else is a big offender at this? Well, it's very difficult to tell just from stats - how can you tell from a summary whether a fight at 5:19 of the 2nd period was off a faceoff and prearranged? But where you CAN tell is the ones at the start of a game. So, here's all the participants in fights this year which occurred within 10 seconds of the start of a game:

Garet Hunt: 4
Jordan Bendfeld: 2
Frazer McLaren: 2
Cody Almond: 1
Mike Berube: 1
Brett Breitkreuz: 1
Shayne Brown: 1
Brady Calla: 1
Ryley Grantham: 1
James Henry: 1
Garrett Klotz: 1
James McEwan: 1
John Negrin: 1
Kevin Philp: 1
Karey Pieper: 1
Nick Ross: 1
Zack Smith: 1
Brennan Sonne: 1
Bretton Stamler: 1
Shayne Wiebe: 1
Luke Wiens: 1

Obviously there is nobody else in the same category as Hunt here....yet, anyway. He has double the number of anyone else and most people on the list have only one.

PIM Leaders

One of the things that bugs me about the WHL statistics is that some years ago, they quit counting 10-minute penalties like misconducts and game misconducts in players' PIM totals. Only minors and majors count....for what reason this move was made, it has never been clear to me. One can speculate that the league hoped to improve its' image by reducing the PIM totals of its' more thuggish players.

But whatever the reason, this move basically made the league's career PIM records irrelevant since today's players can never hope to attain the same PIM totals that players of yesteryear (when they counted 10-minute penalties) did. The league's single-season record of 511 minutes held by Brent Gogol of the 1977-78 Victoria Cougars and Billings Bighorns, for example, will never be touched. It is all but impossible to get 511 minutes in 72 games when you only count minors and majors. Today a season total of half that much (255) would be considered a very high number.

So, what would today's PIM numbers look like if you added misconducts back on? Here's the league's current top 15 PIM leaders, using the no-misconducts method:

1. Benn Olson: 101
2. Kyle Beach: 99
3. Scott Gabriel: 93
4. Matt McCue: 92
5. Garet Hunt: 86
6. Mike Gauthier: 81
7. John Flatters: 76
8. Ryan Bender: 72
9. Ryley Grantham: 70
10. Jordan Bendfeld: 68
10. J.D. Watt: 68
12. Frazer McLaren: 66
13. Mike Wuchterl: 64
14. Colten Teubert: 63
15. Colton Gillies: 61

And the top 15, if you count misconducts:
1. Scott Gabriel: 133
2. Kyle Beach: 129
3. John Flatters: 116
3. Garet Hunt: 116
5. Matt McCue: 112
6. Mike Gauthier: 111
6. Benn Olson: 111
8. J.D. Watt: 108
9. Mike Reich: 102
10. Ryan Bender: 102
11. Frazer McLaren: 96
12. Mike Wuchterl: 94
13. Chad Erb: 86
14. Josh Elder: 85
15. Colten Teubert: 83

The leaders themselves don't change a whole lot, but the totals do - by 20-30 minutes. Extrapolating over a whole season, you can probably add 70-100 minutes minimum onto the totals of many of the league's most penalized players if you were to add misconduct minutes.

All the players in the league with three or more misconduct penalties (both 10's and games) so far this year:

Mike Reich: 5
Josh Elder: 4
John Flatters: 4
Scott Gabriel: 4
Mark Hall: 4
J.D. Watt: 4
Kyle Beach: 3
Ryan Bender: 3
Lucas Bloodoff: 3
Chad Erb: 3
Mike Gauthier: 3
Garet Hunt: 3
Frazer McLaren: 3
Garrett Thiessen: 3
Brennan Sonne: 3
Mike Wuchterl: 3
Teigan Zahn: 3

Thursday thoughts

So, the WHL all-stars (at least the Canadian ones anyway - American and European WHLers aren't allowed to play in this thing) lost to Russia in Cranbrook last night 5-1 in a game which featured a couple fights at the end. Ho-hum. Didn't watch, don't care, yadda yadda.

The Giants have landed yet another NCAA-bound player, their second in a couple weeks. This one is 18 year old forward Garry Nunn, who is passing up a scholarship at Minnesota State-Mankato to join the Giants. The smallish (5'9", 175 lb) Nunn is a very fast skater and was leading the BCHL's Victoria Grizzlies in scoring this year with 40 points in 28 games. His BCHL page with career stats there is here.

How is it that the Giants seem to attract NCAA-bound players regularily while some other WHL teams can never get even one?

The Cougars roster has also swelled by one, with the addition of 16 year old defenceman Matt Cumming from the BCHL's Vernon Vipers. Sounds like Cumming is there to stay.

The bus carrying the ECHL's Elmira Jackals was involved in a highway accident early this morning, seriously injuring the driver and causing minor injuries to a few players. Identities of the players are not known yet but there are two WHL alumni on the team right now as far as I can tell: goaltender Joel Martin and defenceman Luke Fritshaw. Other WHL alumni such as Kirill Starkov, Martin Sagat, and Tomas Kudelka have played for Elmira this year but are not currently on their roster as far as I can see.

Shot differential

After a few games in the last few weeks which featured huge shot differentials, I got to wondering....which teams in the league average the most shots per game? The most shots against per game? And how does usually outshooting your opponent affect how often your team wins? It would stand to reason that the team with the most shots will win the game more often on average since they have more chances to score.....and the stats bear this out, as it turns out:

Vancouver: 33.11 shots for; 21.68 shots against. Diff: 11.43. Win%: 0.696 (3)
Calgary: 34.21 sh. for; 24.1 sh. against. Diff: 10.1. Win%: 0.690 (4)
Spokane: 33.12 sh. for; 23.04 sh. against. Diff: 10.08. Win%: 0.820 (1)
Brandon: 33.93 sh. for; 26.44 sh. against. Diff: 7.48. Win%: 0.648 (6)
Tri-City: 32.6 sh. for; 27.36 sh. against. Diff: 5.24. Win%: 0.760 (2)
Regina: 33.14 sh. for; 28.17 sh. against. Diff: 4.97. Win%: 0.621 (8)
Medicine Hat: 29.81 sh. for; 25.67 sh. against. Diff: 4.15. Win%: 0.593 (T-9)
Lethbridge: 27.59 sh. for; 24.34 sh. against. Diff: 3.24. Win%: 0.655 (5)
Swift Current: 29.79 sh. for; 27.14 sh. against. Diff: 2.64. Win%: 0.625 (7)
Kamloops: 26.58 sh. for; 24.31 sh. against. Diff: 2.27. Win%: 0.538 (T-12)
Chilliwack: 28.14 sh. for; 27.04 sh. against. Diff: 1.11. Win%: 0.518 (16)
Kootenay: 31.21 sh. for; 30.25 sh. against. Diff: 0.96. Win%: 0.589 (11)
Kelowna: 26.81 sh. for; 27.04 sh. against. Diff: -0.22. Win%: 0.593 (T-9)
Everett: 27.64 sh. for; 28.25 sh. against. Diff: -0.61. Win%: 0.536 (14)
Moose Jaw: 28.73 sh. for; 31 sh. against. Diff: -2.27. Win%: 0.538 (T-12)
Seattle: 27.75 sh. for; 31.08 sh. against. Diff: -3.33. Win%: 0.521 (15)
Saskatoon: 28.37 sh. for; 31.89 sh. against. Diff: -3.52. Win%: 0.389 (19)
Red Deer: 23.5 sh. for; 31.2 sh. against. Diff: -7.7. Win%: 0.317 (21)
Prince Albert: 25.24 sh. for; 32.97 sh. against. Diff: -7.72. Win%: 0.414 (18)
Edmonton: 24.25 sh. for; 34.36 sh. against. Diff: -10.11. Win%: 0.429 (17)
Prince George: 23.29 sh. for; 34.54 sh. against. Diff: -11.25. Win%: 0.357 (20)
Portland: 23.71 sh. for; 39.46 sh. against. Diff: -15.75. Win%: 0.208 (22)

In other words, on average Vancouver is outshooting their opponents by 11.4 shots per game every night. And that is reflected in the standings - by winning percentage, they are the 3rd best team in the league. On the other side of the coin, Portland gets outshot by almost 16 shots a night on average - and they are also the worst team in the league by win%.

So we can say that generally speaking, the best teams outshoot their opponents more often, and by greater numbers. Nothing earth-shaking there, I don't think. But there's the numbers so far this year.

To add to this, there have been 9 games this season where one team was outshot by 25 shots or more. That team won two of the games and lost the other seven:

11/24/2007: Chilliwack outshot Portland 68-30. Portland won game 4-3
11/10/2007: Seattle outshot Portland 54-17. Seattle won game 3-1
11/23/2007: Calgary outshot Edmonton 53-19. Calgary won game 5-3
10/26/2007: Vancouver outshot Moose Jaw 56-26. Vancouver won game 4-3
11/24/2007: Calgary outshot Red Deer 47-17. Calgary won game 2-0
9/29/2007: Vancouver outshot Kelowna 43-14. Vancouver won game 5-0
10/17/2007: Chilliwack outshot Seattle 46-19. Chilliwack won game 6-2
9/22/2007: Spokane outshot Prince George 50-23. Spokane won game 7-2
11/18/2007: Calgary outshot Prince Albert 45-18. Prince Albert won game 4-3

There have also been 63 games this year where one team was outshot by 15 shots or more. The number of times each team has been on the short end of that stick:

Prince George: 10
Prince Albert: 8
Edmonton: 7
Portland: 7
Red Deer: 6
Seattle: 5
Moose Jaw: 4
Swift Current: 3
Everett: 2
Kelowna: 2
Saskatoon: 2
Brandon: 1
Chilliwack: 1
Kamloops: 1
Kootenay: 1
Lethbridge: 1
Medicine Hat: 1
Tri-City: 1

And the number of times on the larger end of the 15+ shot differential:

Calgary: 10
Vancouver: 8
Tri-City: 7
Medicine Hat: 5
Regina: 5
Brandon: 4
Lethbridge: 4
Kootenay: 3
Seattle: 3
Spokane: 3
Chilliwack: 2
Everett: 2
Kamloops: 2
Moose Jaw: 2
Swift Current: 2
Prince George: 1

I believe I will let the shots-on-goal point die now.....I've beaten it to death three times over in this post alone.

Wednesday notes

I'm back.....took a day longer to get back to the blog than I would have liked, but you can't control the circumstances sometimes, eh.

The travelling CHL-Russia circus pulls into the WHL tonight for a game tonight in Cranbrook and then tomorrow in Medicine Hat. The Russkies are 1-3 so far this year and are 0-8 all-time against the WHL teams. Rumour has it that this years' edition might be the best squad the Russians have sent to this thing, but I wouldn't know because I haven't watched the games. Nor will I watch tonight or tomorrow. But certainly the Russian team has not been blown out in any of the losses this year - all the games have been close scores so far, unlike in some past years.

Bunch of player moves in the last few days:

- Raiders acquire 19 year old defenceman Zach Sim from the Tigers for a 2008 5th round pick. Sim continues his slow but steady move northeast through the WHL....Everett, then Tri-City, then Medicine Hat, now Prince Albert. Next stop, Iqaluit. They'll have a team there soon enough the way this league expands. (And yes, I know Everett to Tri-Cities is actually southeast, not northeast....)
- Lethbridge trades 18 year old forward Josh Gionfriddo to Kootenay for a 2009 7th round pick that Kootenay had previously acquired from the Hurricanes for Paul MacDonald. So essentially MacDonald has been traded for Gionfriddo now.
- Gionfriddo replaces Travis Gorman on the Ice roster. Gorman, recently acquired from Tri-Cities, decided to leave the Ice for unknown personal reasons.
- Portland has acquired the rights to 17 year old James Kerr from Kelowna for a conditional 2009 4th round pick. The condition is that Kerr must report to Portland - so far he appears to be eyeing the college route. But, Kerr played Jr B for Hawks coach Rich Kromm last year with the KIJHL's Summerland Sting, and Kerr's father (ex-NHLer Alan Kerr) is a friend of Kromm's. You'd have to think that Portland's chances of getting Kerr into their lineup are a lot better than Kelowna's were.

Lethbridge picked up contract options on coach Michael Dyck and G.M. Roy Stasiuk yesterday, ensuring they'll be at their jobs through the end of 08-09. Unless they get fired, I mean.

The Hitmen announced yesterday that there are only 400 tickets left for Sunday's Teddy Bear Toss game. It seems safe to assume that with four days of sales left, plus walk-ups, that the game will be a sellout - which would set a new CHL single-game attendance record at 19,289.

Speaking of bears and records, Portland collected 20,372 bears at their Toss on Saturday. The Hitmen intend to re-take that record, which topped Calgary's 15,540 from last year.

And still with Portland, their 2006 1st round pick, Riley Boychuk, is likely going to be out for the rest of the season.....he is apparently considering surgery on his troublesome hip which has only allowed him to play 5 games so far this year. Thanks to Andy Kemper's blog for that tidbit.

And a nice note now.....with the Roughriders winning the CFL's Grey Cup on Sunday, the Getzlaf family has now won two professional sports titles this year. Younger brother Ryan won the Stanley Cup with Anaheim in June, and older brother Chris is a backup slotback for the Riders.

Dumb jocks? Nope.....apparently, WHL players know how to read.

UPDATE: Another trade. This one sees the Tigers send 19 year old forward Scott Wasden and a 7th round pick to Kamloops for 18 year old forward Travis Dunstall. Dunstall was the Blazers' 1st round pick in 2004 but I'm guessing the new regime doesn't see the same potential in him that the old regime once did. Dunstall set the Alberta Major Bantam league record for goals in a season with 58 in 2003-04, and held the record until last year when Mark Reners scored 61. Dunstall has not been able to bring that kind of goalscoring to the WHL level though - he has only 21 goals there in 130+ games.

Thursday notes

Couple teams pared their rosters by a player each yesterday....Kootenay has sent 16 year old goaltender Nathan Lieuwen to Jr A with the Westside Warriors of the BCHL. Lieuwen made the team out of training camp but suffered a concussion in a single-car accident after his first game of the season and had not been cleared to play again until recently. In the meantime, Thomas Heemskerk had solidified himself (2.16 GAA, .919 sv%) as the team's backup, which means Lieuwen is out of a job. He was the Ice's 2006 1st round bantam pick and should be back to stay next year.

Meanwhile, Vancouver has sent 17 year old defenceman Dillon Scholten to an unspecified team the BCHL. The Giants tidbit is from Steve Ewen's blog, where he also reports that Giants teammates Jon Blum and Spencer Machacek got into a fight at practice yesterday. It was quickly broken up and nobody was hurt; hopefully it was just due to some temporary frustrations and not a sign that the captain (Machacek) and alternate (Blum) don't like each other. It can't be good for a team to have two leaders being at each others throats all the time.

Couple random notes.....anyone who might have questioned the Blazers' firing of Dean Clark and/or the trading of Keaton Ellerby for Brady Calla is probably quiet now. Since the firing/trade, the Blazers are 6-1 (.857); they were 6-9-1-1 (.412) before. They are averaging 3.57 goals for per game and 2.25 goals against per game since the changes; they were at 2.18 goals for and 2.88 goals against before the changes. Meanwhile, Moose Jaw is 1-4-1 (.250) since the trade and were 9-5-3-1 (.611) before it. That means Keaton Ellerby's record this year is 7-13-2 (.386), if you're keeping track of all that.

Second note, the blog might not be updated again after today until next Tuesday. I'm going away for the weekend and may not be able to update it tomorrow or Monday. I'll be in Lethbridge on Saturday and am going to try to take in the Hurricanes-Oil Kings game that night....it has been a while since I saw a game in another rink between two teams I have no stake in, so it should be fun. Funny how the quality of the league's reffing always improves 100% when you're not cheering for either team.....

Getting away from hockey for a minute and moving to the CFL, Winnipeg head coach Doug Berry got in a good candidate for quote of the year yesterday at the coaches' press conference for this weekend's Grey Cup. When asked his position on his players having sex in the days leading up to Sunday's game (somebody ALWAYS asks that question at these championship game pressers just for shits and giggles, don't they?), Berry replied "If it's with themselves".

And another non-hockey note.....I see that a gold medal in 2008 is now worth a $70,000 cheque to Canadian swimmers. I know that many other countries do this already, but to me it just begs the question of whether this is just another reason to induce young athletes to cheat. The vast majority of athletes from every country are nowhere near medal-calibre and never will be, and I know that winning a gold medal already brings a lot of athletes everywhere a treasure chest of cash through endorsements and whatnot - to the point where this extra $70,000 might not be all that much. But do we need to keep adding more and more incentive for the B-level athletes to cheat in order to take those extra tenths or hundredths of a second off their times and become contenders?

Wednesday notes

One minor trade in the league yesterday, Tri-Cities sending 18 year old forward Travis Gorman to Kootenay for a 2009 6th round pick. Gorman wasn't playing much in Tri and with the Ice needing depth at forward (they have only 12 forwards on their roster), Gorman should be able to help fill that bill while getting more playing time as well.

While the Ice were adding a forward to their roster, the Bruins were paring one off, as they assigned 17 year old forward Colton Graf to Melfort of the SJHL.

Linden Vey of the Tigers is fitting right in as a 16 year old in the WHL.

Carter Smith is enjoying being back in the WHL with the Rebels after being unsure about his hockey future earlier this year. Also includes some thoughts from Smith on the aftermath of The Accident and its effect on his life.

Another gripe about the WHL website today.....there have been a few games rescheduled this year for new dates or new times, so I thought I would get the list of them from the WHL site just to keep my own schedule up to date. So, I click on the "Schedule Changes" section of the WHL site's calendar. Apparently I've been imagining all these announced changes, because the OFFICIAL WHL SITE says there haven't been any. Oh well.

Tuesday notes

One trade yesterday in the WHL, the Rebels finally moving the disgruntled Luke Betts to Spokane for Cody Esposito in a swap of 18 year old forwards. Esposito provides more size and toughness to the Rebels lineup; it's less obvious why the Chiefs wanted Betts, who hasn't really proven anything or really found a role in the WHL.

The Chiefs made another move yesterday too, reassigning goaltender James Reid. Reid had been with the team all year but had not gotten even a single minute of playing time.....which makes you wonder why it's the 3rd week of November and he was still there instead of somewhere where he could play and develop. Hopefully he can still catch on with a good Jr A or midget program.

The annual CHL-Russia borefest got underway last night, with the Russkies scoring three unanswered goals in the third period to defeat the QMJHL all-stars 6-4. This was Russia's 4th win in 25 games over five years at this thing....and their 3rd win over the QMJHL in 9 tries.

Monday stuff

One trade over the weekend, with the Rebels shipping out yet another one of their rebuilding blocks. This time it's 17 year old defenceman Zak Stebner - their 2nd round pick in 2005 - off to Prince Albert for the rights to goalie David Aime. Aime, you'll recall, was the Raiders backup last year but lost his spot on the team to newcomer Steven Stanford this year. Since the Rebels still have two very capable goalies on their roster - James Reimer and Morgan Clark - we have to assume that acquiring Aime is just insurance in case one of them goes down, or perhaps in case they decide to deal Reimer to a contender at the trade deadline. Otherwise, why is a rebuilding team dealing former 2nd round picks away for so-so goalies who will likely never play for them?

Wondering how former WHL star - and brief NHLer - Dan Blackburn is doing these days since injuries forced him out of hockey? Wonder no more.

Raiders import Max Brandl is feeling a little more comfortable these days, now that his father has arrived in Prince Albert for a visit. So comfortable, he scored his first home goal of the season in the first game his dad watched.

Speaking of dads visiting - heck, of the whole family visiting - the Kraus clan gathered in the Tri-Cities over the weekend for the one and only meeting of the season (barring a trade) between older brother Tim (Pats) and younger brother Kevin (Americans). And with Tim being an overager this year, this was the last time the two will face each other in a high-level game like this, unless they end up playing professionally against each other of course.

Article on new Oil King, Jeff Lee, who left the NCAA to join the WHL earlier this year.

Team Pacific announced

Team Pacific roster was just announced.

14 of 22 are off WHL rosters....here's the breakdown, with current WHL team and/or which WHL club owns their rights:

Goaltenders:
Nathan Lieuwen - Kootenay Ice
James Priestner - Kamloops Blazers

Defencemen:
Tyson Barrie - Kelowna Rockets
Ryan Button - Prince Albert Raiders
Steve Chaffin - Seattle Thunderbirds
Stefan Elliott - Saskatoon Blades
Neil Manning - Vancouver Giants
Dylan Olsen - Medicine Hat Tigers prospect
Brennan Yadlowski - Lethbridge Hurricanes

Forwards:
Michael Burns - Edmonton Oil Kings prospect
Landon Ferraro - Red Deer Rebels
Ryan Howse - Chilliwack Bruins
Killian Hutt - Medicine Hat Tigers prospect
Clayton Jardine - Kootenay Ice prospect
Evander Kane - Vancouver Giants
Justin Maylan - Moose Jaw Warriors
Steve Oursov - Seattle Thunderbirds prospect
Cameron Reid - Edmonton Oil Kings prospect
Chase Schaber - Calgary Hitmen
Brendan Silvester - Seattle Thunderbirds
Kellan Tochkin - Everett Silvertips prospect
Dillon Wagner - Swift Current Broncos prospect

As a side note, Burns was dropped by Portland either during the summer or following training camp, and promptly snatched up by Edmonton. Apparently the people picking this team, as well as many other WHL scouts, think he is one of the top 6 '91 forwards in Alberta.....but not Winter Hawks brass. Is this a symptom of the problems in Portland?

Friday notes

The Team Pacific (B.C./Alberta) roster for the World U-17 Challenge will be announced this afternoon. There were 16 WHLers on the Team Western roster and there should be a similar number on the Pacific roster, I would think.

The Hitmen are close to announcing a sellout of the Teddy Bear Toss game on December 2 against the visiting Prince George Cougars. At a capacity of 19,289, it would set a new WHL attendance record - the current record is a crowd of 19,103 to see a game in Portland in March 1997. They also hope to top last year's total of 15,540 teddy bears collected.

After waiting out the first part of the season, former WHL star and onetime NHLer Jared Aulin finally becomes eligible to play for the University of Calgary hockey team this weekend. We'll see how he does.....there's not a lot of former NHLers who have played at this level so he should be a dominant player, but the Dinosaurs also aren't a very good team this year either so he might not have a lot of support.

Jim Swanson of the Prince George Citizen takes a look at whether the WHL is starting to win more and more of the recruiting wars with the NCAA over players.

The Blades' Ondrej Fiala is, apparently, fearless. So says both his shins AND coach Lorne Molleken.

More on Casey Pierro-Zabotel's move to Vancouver. Sounds like he'll start on a line with a couple of rookies and work his way up?

UPDATE: Mike Reich is on the move again, as he was traded today from Vancouver to Saskatoon for a 2009 7th round pick. Not a surprise as he has been a healthy scratch in 4 of the Giants' last 5 games, and 19 year olds can't do that and stay on a team. In the little over two years since November 2, 2005, Reich has now been with five teams: Spokane, Calgary, Regina, Vancouver, and now Saskatoon.

The numbers on 3-in-3's

This post is in response to a question posed to Gregg Drinnan from a Portland fan, Curt Kemper. Gregg passed it along to me....basically, Curt wants to know how many times this year each WHL team plays the dreaded 3-in-3: 3 games in 3 nights, almost always on a Friday-Saturday-Sunday. A schedule heavy on these can make things rougher on a team since usually by the third game everyone's butt is dragging and makes it tough to win those games, especially against a better-rested team. Not to mention the increased chance of injuries as minds and muscles become fatigued.

So, here's the totals for each team this year. In every case but one (a Thu-Fri-Sat trio by Everett after Christmas), they are Fri-Sat-Sun combos.

Portland: 11
Seattle: 11
Vancouver: 9
Tri City: 8
Chilliwack: 7
Spokane: 7
Calgary: 6
Everett: 6
Kamloops: 6
Lethbridge: 5
Medicine Hat: 5
Moose Jaw: 5
Prince George: 5
Regina: 5
Brandon: 4
Prince Albert: 4
Red Deer: 4
Edmonton: 3
Kelowna: 3
Kootenay: 3
Saskatoon: 3
Swift Current: 1

Whoever made Swift Current's schedule should get a pat on the back for accomplishing that.

How about the number of times each team plays 4 games in 5 nights...note that for this stat, I required distinct groups of games for each. ie, you could argue that a team that played Wed, Fri, Sat, Sun, and Tue did it twice (Wed-Fri-Sat-Sun and Fri-Sat-Sun-Tue), but I counted that only once because the Fri-Sat-Sun games were common to both groups. The totals:

Chilliwack: 8
Portland: 7
Prince George: 7
Seattle: 7
Spokane: 7
Calgary: 6
Everett: 6
Kamloops: 6
Lethbridge: 6
Brandon: 5
Prince Albert: 5
Red Deer: 5
Saskatoon: 5
Tri City: 5
Medicine Hat: 4
Moose Jaw: 4
Swift Current: 4
Vancouver: 4
Edmonton: 2
Kelowna: 2
Kootenay: 2
Regina: 1

Or how about the killer 5 games in 6 nights:

Prince Albert: 2
Seattle: 2
Brandon: 1
Calgary: 1
Edmonton: 1
Medicine Hat: 1
Portland: 1
Prince George: 1
Red Deer: 1
Spokane: 1

I see most teams don't even have to do that this year.

Or, the just slightly-easier 5 games in 7 nights:

Calgary: 7
Portland: 5
Red Deer: 5
Edmonton: 4
Seattle: 4
Brandon: 3
Everett: 3
Prince George: 3
Lethbridge: 2
Medicine Hat: 2
Prince Albert: 2
Saskatoon: 2
Swift Current: 2
Tri City: 2
Chilliwack: 1
Kamloops: 1
Kelowna: 1
Moose Jaw: 1
Spokane: 1

Kootenay, Regina, and Vancouver never have to play five games in a one-week span this year.

Thursday stuff

Bunch of player movement to mention....first, 19 year old forward Levi Lind has left the Regina Pats in favour of playing Jr A in the SJHL. It's probably not a great loss as Lind had no points and little icetime and his playing time might be better off being given to a younger player with more upside.

Still with the Pats, they healthy-scratched vets Troy Ofukany and Josh Elder for last night's game for disciplinary reasons which coach Curtis Hunt would not discuss. Is it just me or do the Pats seem to have a lot of disciplinary scratches? If so, is that condemnation of some of their players, or a commendation to the organization for being more willing to admit to why vets are scratched?

By the way, want to know what Pats coach Curtis Hunt thought of the officiating last night in Medicine Hat? Some choice comments from him in Pats p-b-p guy Rod Pederson's blog. Sez Hunt: "I thought we played a great game but it almost was taken away from us with the usual homer calls you get here in Medicine Hat. You know those long sticks they use to clean swimming pools in the summer? Sometimes I'd like to get one of those and put a boxing glove on the end of it."

Hmmm.....you don't suppose Hunt's wallet will be lighter in the next few days, do you? I don't think the league will let a coach make an allusion to punching a referee and get away with it.

Next, the SJHL lost a player to the WHL as well, with former Warrior and Silvertip Carter Smith joining the Red Deer Rebels yesterday, where he made a stylish debut by scoring the winning goal in Red Deer's victory over Edmonton. As I mentioned when he left Everett, Smith has not been the same player since The Accident and hopefully this is a step towards him finally realizing the promise he once had as a 2nd round bantam pick.

As mentioned yesterday, Casey Pierro-Zabotel has joined the Vancouver Giants. I've already seen/read people making fun of him because he was forced to give up his scholarship when he couldn't academically qualify for university. That, I think, is unfortunate.....not everyone in the world is cut out for post-secondary educations. There are a lot of current players in the WHL (and some in the NCAA too!) who will never earn a university degree. I don't see why this is something to poke fun at the kid over.

And still with the Giants, a great story here about 20 year old super-pest Garet Hunt and his "little billet brother", 16 year old Neil Manning. Meanwhile, Giants goaltender Tyson Sexsmith billets with the mom of Chiefs forward David Rutherford, which makes for some tough games for Rutherford's mom when the two teams face each other.

And another billet story, this one in Chilliwack where overage defenceman Dylan Chapman was tasked with easing import David Hoda's transition into North America.

Lastly, the Hitmen have introduced a special jersey for the annual Teddy Bear Toss game on December 2nd. It's kind of an amusing idea as they have kept the usual stick-wielding masked "hitman" logo but have added a Santa hat to the character, as well as snowbanks on top of all the numbers, and the shoulder patch is a teddy bear. The jerseys themselves are bright red instead of the usual black. Pictures here and here. The jerseys will be sold at a game a week later via a silent auction and proceeds distributed to charity.

Giants land NCAA recruit

The Giants have apparently signed 2007 NHL 3rd round pick Casey Pierro-Zabotel to a WHL contract. Pierro-Zabotel gives up his NCAA scholarship to Michigan Tech after repeatedly failing to score high enough marks to get into university.

Pierro-Zabotel has been playing with the BCHL's Merritt Centennials this year, as he has for the past three years. 15 goals and 12 assists in 17 games there so far this year. His rights have been owned by several WHL teams over the last few years but none have been able to recruit him; now the NCAA music has stopped and the Giants have apparently grabbed the only remaining chair.

Wednesday notes

The roster for Team Western - the Saskatchewan/Manitoba joint entry in the World U-17 Challenge which takes place in London, Ontario after Christmas - was announced yesterday and includes 16 current WHLers in its 22 players. The other 6 players are all WHL prospects who are not in the league this year. The roster:

Goaltenders:
Graham Hildebrand, Brandon Wheat Kings prospect
Mathew Krahn, Saskatoon Blades prospect

Defencemen:
Paul Bonar, Moose Jaw Warriors prospect
Jared Cowen, Spokane Chiefs
Brayden McNabb, Kootenay Ice
Brodie Melnychuk, Brandon Wheat Kings
Dominic Perrault, Red Deer Rebels prospect
Alex Pym, Regina Pats
Paul Sohor, Everett Silvertips prospect

Forwards:
Carter Ashton, Lethbridge Hurricanes
Jimmy Bubnick, Kamloops Blazers
Brett Chartier, Everett Silvertips prospect
Cody Eakin, Swift Current Broncos
Jason Gardiner, Tri-City Americans
Scott Glennie, Brandon Wheat Kings
James Henry, Vancouver Giants
Brandon Herrod, Prince Albert Raiders
Adam Hughesman, Tri-City Americans
Garrett Mitchell, Regina Pats
Brayden Schenn, Brandon Wheat Kings
Linden Vey, Medicine Hat Tigers
Mason Wilgosh, Tri-City Americans

The roster for Team Pacific (joint B.C. /Alberta entry) should be announced in the next few days. You can see the shortlists for B.C. and Alberta for an idea of who might make that team. Each province provides 11 players.

It took a few days longer than I thought it would, but former WHL goalie David Reekie has indeed landed in the OHL. He was picked up yesterday by the Windsor Spitfires as part of an overhaul of the Spits' goaltending. The good news for Reekie is that Plymouth is one of the top contenders in the OHL this year; the bad news is that the Spitfires also acquired goalie Michal Neuvirth from the Plymouth Whalers in a trade yesterday, and Neuvirth will very likely be the new #1 goalie there since he is one of the best in the OHL and has Memorial Cup experience from last year with the Whalers. So, Reekie may be looking at the backup job behind Neuvirth - but the Spits also still have another goalie, Andrew Engelage, who has played almost all their games so far this year. Oh, and they also have three other overagers still, but the OHL has different overage rules which don't require them to get down to three until January 10 - although only three can play per game. So, there's obviously some roster juggling to be done there yet and we'll have to wait and see when Reekie gets to play and how he does.

Oil Kings defenceman Cameron Cepek has made a smooth switch from wheels to blades.

From the NHL: forget the flashy Italian wheels or the intimidating Hummers which many of his fellow NHLers drive. No, Sharks rookie Devin Setoguchi is getting around San Jose in a rented Toyota Corolla. "Twenty bucks a day", he brags. A good deal, I'd say, when your $850,000 contract averages out at what, $4500 a day over the season?

Tuesday notes

As per the comments section of yesterday's post, and Andy Kemper's blog, it turns out that Portland has adjusted their roster down to 25, as well as ended their three-goalie experiment, by sending Mark Guggenberger home for disciplinary reasons. No idea what he did but it must either be pretty serious or a repeat offence if he's getting sent home and kicked off the team for it.

NHL legend Johnny Bower is going home to Prince Albert for the Raiders game tomorrow night. He's also coming clean about his age: he has been lying about it all his life, and it turns out he's actually only 17 so he's going to join the Raiders for the rest of the year.

Everett has replaced the traded Matt Strong on their blueline by recalling 16 year old Jeff Regier from Junior A. Regier started the season in Everett but was sent down to Jr A in October. Presumably he is back to stay now.

Prince George defenceman Jesse Dudas is hurt. Wow, who saw that coming?

I'm surprised nobody turned out the lights: Russia and the USA brawl at the end of the Four Nations U-17 tournament in Dmitrov, Russia last weekend. Some pretty dirty play there from some of the Russians....like the guy who grabs the American player's (former NHLer Uwe Krupp's son Bjorn, no less) head from behind with both hands and almost rips his head off. Or the guy sitting on top of the American player and punching him in the back of the head. Grow some balls and at least go after people from the front.

Love him or hate him, the NY Rangers' Sean Avery is entertainment. For those who haven't seen or heard it yet, Avery got into a few pre-game talking matches last week before games with New Jersey and Toronto. Don Cherry talked about it on HNiC on Saturday; you can see the pre-game incidents (and hear Grapes' comments) here. Later in the game, Toronto's Darcy Tucker took his shot at Avery in a scrap. Then, the Leafs' Wade Belak proved after the game that he's as dumb as he looks by threatening to hit Avery over the head with his stick. Meanwhile, Tucker whined after the game that Avery "has no class". Pot, meet kettle.

Tips, Rebels swap 20's

Everett and Red Deer have swapped overage forwards this afternoon. The Rebels send Clayton Bauer and a 6th round pick in 2008 to Everett for Brennan Sonne and 17 year old defenceman Matt Strong.

Bauer is the best player in the deal, as evidenced by the Silvertips having to give up a good 17 year old like Strong in order to make up the difference between Bauer and Sonne. So the rebuilding continues in Red Deer while the Silvertips try to add a little more punch up front, which Bauer should be able to provide as a decent 20-25 goal guy.

Red Deer still needs to find something to do with Luke Betts, incidentally. He remains suspended by the team after refusing a trade a couple weeks back.

Monday thoughts

And here I thought the changes Portland made were going to improve their defence. It's early days yet, but initial results are not very promising - in two weekend games, the Hawks gave up 107 shots. They were averaging 37 shots against per game prior to the trades. Those 107 shots only cost them eight goals, but that's a credit to goaltenders Jordan White and Kurtis Mucha, and probably not something they want to have to rely on every night.

That's an interesting stat that I don't have handy, but I'd like to see: how shots-against correlates to wins and losses. It stands to reason that in general, the more shots you give up, the less games you will win since you're giving your opponent more chances to score. But where's the tipping point, the shot total at which teams begin to lose more disproportionately? I would guess it's somewhere in the 32-35 shot range but that's just a guess. I have no stats on this but might try to rustle some up if I have time at some point this week.

Portland also made a blueline trade on the weekend, moving out 19 year old veteran defenceman Todd Panchyson to Seattle for a conditional draft pick. (Seattle fans can only dream that this is the Kevin Popp trade in reverse). Panchyson is a former 1st-round bantam pick but has played for Kootenay, Saskatoon, Lethbridge, Portland, and now Seattle in his WHL career. I would imagine the trade was necessitated by Portland being over the roster limit. Which, by my count, they still are since they're at 26 players. Check the WHL site roster....don't count Brad Ross (affiliate player) or Brock Cornish (out for the season) and you still get 26.

The Portland roster will shrink by one more player soon though, as scrappy '90 forward Tayler Jordan has requested a trade, which G.M. Ken Hodge has said the team will try to fulfill. Thanks to Gregg Drinnan's blog for that scoop. I would guess that Jordan's role is different under new coach Rich Kromm than it was last year with Mike Williamson.

Also from Gregg's blog, and on a sad note, former WHL defenceman Chris Chubb was killed last Sunday in a car accident. Here is the obituary and the Edmonton Journal blurb on the accident is here. Chubb played one season, for the Kootenay Ice, in 1999-00 - and a great season that was too since the Ice won the WHL title and played in the Memorial Cup. I remember him as a big guy who was a depth defenceman for the Ice but played almost every game and was a willing fighter. Reading the obituary, the very first comment in the guestbook is from Chubb's former coach, Ryan McGill.

Still with Kootenay, the Ice made a trade on the weekend, with Swift Current. The Ice pick up 17 year old Broncos list player Kris Foucault for a 2008 6th round bantam pick. Foucault failed to make the Broncos out of training camp, but that was probably due to number and not because he isn't good enough to play in the WHL. Foucault had been playing AAA midget in Calgary so far this season and has joined the Ice already.

Another new face in the league as well, as the Edmonton Oil Kings have picked up forward Jeff Lee from the NCAA's University of Alaska-Fairbanks. Big kid but he doesn't look like he has a history of scoring a lot of points, even in Jr A. We'll see what the Oil Kings see his role being in the WHL.....and on another Oil Kings note, they were involved in their 6th shootout of the season already on Saturday night. That's 6 shootouts in 22 games, or 27% of their games. They are a respectable 3-3 in the game-deciders. Runner-up in the most-shootouts category is Vancouver, who have been in four of them so far. Medicine Hat, Portland, Prince Albert, and Regina still haven't been in one this year.

Still no word on the hockey future of former WHL goalie David Reekie. He has been a free agent for several days now and I thought for sure some team in the OHL or QMJHL would have picked him up by now. But, still nothing. At this rate I'm starting to think we might see him heading to Jr A until there's a major junior team that's interested. The hard part might be finding a Jr A team willing to let him come play for them, knowing it's just a stopping-off point for him.

Friday notes

The upheaval is not over in Kamloops. Greg Hawgood is the coach for the rest of this season - and the rest of this season only, as team owner Tom Gagliardi stated yesterday. Hawgood will be replaced next summer, and appears to have only been hired in the first place because he was convenient (he lives in Kamloops) and because he has ties to some members of the ownership group through their playing days. He has no coaching experience. Is this any way to run a team? Why not take an extra week or two and find the best-qualified coach, who can then start shaping the team for the next several years NOW, rather than waiting until next summer to really start going in a new direction?

Secondly, there will be no G.M. hired until next summer as well - which is why Hawgood wasn't given the vote of confidence as coach past this year. Presumably the job of hiring the new coach would be given to whoever becomes the new G.M., which is entirely reasonable. But for the remainder of this season, it's unclear who is at the controls as far as making trades, the May bantam draft, and other key G.M. responsibilities are concerned.

The Reekie situation in Everett is over, at least from the Everett side of things. The Silvertips were unable to trade him and put him on waivers instead. Interesting note in the article though that Tips G.M. Doug Soetart did have a trade worked out for Reekie before he came down with mono; that would indicate that at least one G.M. in the league did like him enough to want to give up something for him. Whether that team (which has probably addressed their goaltending another way since then) is still interested, I guess we'll see. I have a gut feeling that Reekie will end up in the OHL though.

Lots of coverage of the three big trades yesterday.....here's links to several different takes on the deals, from the local papers covering the teams involved. Lethbridge Herald, Moose Jaw Times-Herald #1, Moose Jaw Times-Herald #2, Portland Tribune, Portland Oregonian #1, Portland Oregonian #2, Regina Leader-Post. Yes, the two Portland papers deemed these events worthy of articles - even if the Tribune's article as well as Oregonian article #2 (actually a blog post) are largely cut-and-paste jobs of the team press release, right down to the error in calling Jason Grecica a defenceman acquired from Lethbridge instead of a forward acquired from Moose Jaw.

Implied in the Warriors comments about the acquisition of Frazer McLaren: nobody is going to elbow Riley Holzapfel in the head again.

As Red Deer visits the Lower Mainland this weekend, former NHL star Ray Ferraro is looking forward to catching up with his son Landon, and the Giants are looking forward to renewing acquaintances with former teammate J.D. Watt.

Former Spokane Chief star Derek Ryan is following a somewhat untraditional path in his life after the WHL: he is attending the University of Alberta. What's so unusual about that? Well, Ryan is an American and thus has some additional challenges in being a student at U of A. Like double the tuition of his Canadian teammates, for example. And the weak exchange rate for the U.S. dollar. Almost makes you wonder why he didn't go to a state university south of the border, where financially things would be easier for him....but maybe he really wants to play hockey for one of the CIS's most consistently powerful teams.

Two big trades for Hawks

Portland shakes up their roster this morning with two blockbuster trades that move out five roster players.

First, Colton Sceviour (18 year old forward), Nick Hotson (20 year old forward), and Lucas Alexiuk (18 year old defenceman) are off to Lethbridge for Ryan Kerr (18 year old defenceman), Travis Bobbee (17 year old defenceman), Jacob Dietrich (20 year old forward), Nick Dietrich (18 year old forward), and a 2008 5th round pick. Yes, the Dietrichs are brothers and get moved together. Kerr (2004) and Bobbee (2005) are past first-round bantam picks, as is Sceviour (2004). Kerr was actually the #1 overall in 2004.

Then, that 5th round pick from Lethbridge, plus Frazer McLaren (20 year old forward) and Ty Ariss (17 year old defenceman), are off to Moose Jaw for Travis Ehrhardt (18 year old defenceman), Keith Voytechek (20 year old forward), and Jason Grecica (17 year old forward). Ehrhardt (2004) is another past first-round bantam pick so the Hawks have picked up three of those this morning.

So, the Hawks roster grows by two players since they move out five and get back seven bodies. Which means the moves aren't done since by my count they have 27 players on the roster now and you can only have 25.

I guess my first reaction to these two deals, plus the Calla-Ellerby one earlier, is that it's obvious why Portland is making these moves. But, it's less obvious to me why teams like Lethbridge (who are unbeaten in their last eight games) and Moose Jaw (moving up after a poor start) want to make such big shakeups to their rosters right now.

For Portland, getting Bobbee and Ehrhardt is probably going to improve their ability to move the puck out of their zone - a real problem for them so far this year, which p-b-p guy Andy Kemper touched on in his blog earlier this morning, before the trades. Kerr will provide some decent defensive play and a little toughness to help replace what they lose with McLaren's departure. Kerr is probably not more than a middleweight but it's something anyway. So, their back end is probably better for these moves. The problem for them (IMO anyway) is that up front they have just moved out three of their top six scorers from an offence which didn't have much punch to begin with - and haven't really gotten back much scoring help to replace them. Voytechek will score some points but Grecica and the two Dietrichs probably aren't going to provide much pop.

Thursday news

Biggest news of the day is that the Blazers have fired coach/G.M. Dean Clark. The new coach will be a former Blazer, Greg Hawgood, and a new G.M. (or at least an interim one) will be named soon. Clark is one of the WHL's winningest coaches of the last ten years, but was probably done in by his lack of recent success in the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately world of sports. He did not get a vote of confidence from the new brass when they took over the team, and his fate was probably sealed even then, really.

Clark will no doubt find work in the WHL again if he wants it, but the Blazers will still be paying him for the rest of this year and all of next season as well, so he has the luxury of waiting for the right opportunity while not having to worry about how to feed the family.

Still with the Blazers - as I was speculating yesterday, the Blazers have traded defenceman Keaton Ellerby for scoring help. Gregg Drinnan had it in his blog last night; the deal was officially announced today and sees Ellerby going to Moose Jaw for forward Brady Calla, in an exchange of 19 year olds. It's a swap of two guys whose production should oftentimes be more than what they have provided.

The second move, in light of the first one, begs the question: if the Blazers have no G.M. right now, who made the trade?

Something happened in the WHL last night that has not happened since 1995: the Prince Albert Raiders won a hockey game in Calgary. The Raiders topped the Hitmen 5-2 for their first regulation win in Calgary since November 22, 1995. They did win a shootout game 2-1 there on March 8, 2006, but shootouts are a skills competition.....the hockey game itself was a tie. Since that November 1995 game (which was the Raiders' first-ever game at the Saddledome), they had gone 28 games without a regulation win.

For something slightly related to the Raiders, and something I overlooked last weekend: the Rebels have suspended 18 year old forward Luke Betts after he apparently refused a trade that would have seen him going to Prince Albert for a couple of midget prospects. I'm not sure why Betts would not want the fresh start....he seems to have been bypassed in Red Deer by the youth movement (funny, wasn't he PART of that youth movement just a year ago?) and perhaps he would have been able to play a bigger role in Prince Albert. I mean, if the Raiders were willing to give up TWO prospects for him, you'd think they might like Betts. As it is, he appears to be in limbo right now while (presumably) the Rebels try to work out something else. The Rebels are now down to just 12 forwards on their roster too.

Speaking of unhappy players; as per Kootenay's website, the Ice have traded malcontent defenceman Paul MacDonald - who had gone home earlier this week due to unhappiness about his ice time - to the Lethbridge Hurricanes for a 2009 7th round bantam pick. Uh, if that's the most that anyone would pay for him, then maybe his desire for more ice time wasn't well-founded.

The Ice also further reduced the need for their fans to buy programs by having the OTHER MacDonald on the team, forward Jason, leave the team and go home of his own accord. This MacDonald was only brought in a short while ago, after he had previously had stints in Regina and Kelowna. The Ice now have just 21 players on their roster. With three of those players being injured right now, they actually only have 18 players they can dress for upcoming games. Look for some callups or more trades here....

Still on the trade front, Everett overage goaltender David Reekie comes off the 60-day injured list tomorrow, which means (as I understand it anyway) that the Silvertips will now have one week to get down to three overagers again. So, sometime in the next seven days they will have to trade or release one of Reekie, Dane Crowley, Dan Gendur, or Brennan Sonne. Most likely it is going to be Reekie who gets moved since the Silvertips already have Leland Irving entrenched as the #1 goalie there. But on the other hand, maybe they want to cover their butts in the event Irving is gone for 5-6 weeks with the Canadian World Junior team....but that means moving one of the other overagers and would probably force a move of Reekie anyway at the trade deadline when Irving returned. So many options here.....we'll just have to see what happens.

Teams with open overage spots right now (who could take Reekie without needing to make another overager move to make room for him) are Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, and Vancouver, and none of those teams have glaring weaknesses in net. I actually can't see a team in the league right now that is probably unhappy enough with their goaltending that they would want to make a major move.....certainly some teams probably wish their goaltending was better or more consistent but unhappy enough to bring in a new overage? About the only team I think might be at that point is maybe Saskatoon but they don't have room for an overager either.

UPDATE: Everett has waived Reekie this morning, as per Nick Patterson's blog. So, I guess they didn't have a week to make a decision after all. Reekie can now be claimed by any team in the WHL for the next 24 hours; if more than one team claims him then the lower-ranked team in the standings gets him. If there are no claims in the 24 hours, he is free to go to any team he wishes in the CHL or Jr A.

Back to Lyon Messier and his famous dad for a minute.....found this article today on what Mark Messier is doing these days, in the lead-up to his Hall Of Fame induction. The reason I mention this is because in the article, Messier refers to his "two beautiful children". Which is nice, except.....he has three kids, not two. We can only presume he is referring to his two children with his current wife, and not Lyon, who is his son with a previous girlfriend. Poor Lyon.

Wednesday stuff

How often are NHL top-ten overall draft picks made healthy scratches in the WHL? Not very often. Well, Kamloops defenceman Keaton Ellerby was a healthy scratch in the Blazers' 2-1 shootout loss to Red Deer last night. Dean Clark insists he is not going to try to trade Ellerby and instead is just trying to motivate him to play better - but this isn't the first time Clark has had to healthy-scratch Ellerby due to poor play and you have to wonder how much more patience Clark has for Ellerby when the Blazers are really hurting for offence. Being able to bring in a defenceman of Ellerby's calibre (and give him a 2nd chance) could bring out some quality forwards in trade offers if Clark wanted to put Ellerby on the block.

Still with last night, Chilliwack forward Oscar Moller scored two goals last night and is now the WHL's first 20-goal scorer this year. The milestone comes after only 19 games of play, which means that if he continued this pace he would top out around 75-80 goals on the season, which would be far and away the most the WHL has seen in a number of years. The last player to top 70 goals in a season was Pavel Brendl of Calgary with 73 goals in 1998-99. The last player to top 80 was Frank Banham of Saskatoon with 83 in 1995-96.

Moller's numbers are more impressive when you consider that he had only 3 goals in his first 10 games. That's right, he has 17 goals in the last 9 games now, and has at least one goal in each of those games. Check out his game-by-game, it is a very impressive look at a guy who is absolutely on fire and is easily the most dangerous sniper in the league right now. The team is not nearly as hot though - the Bruins are only 4-5 in those 9 games, which would seem to indicate that they need somebody else to be scoring goals for them besides Moller. He has 17 of their 35 goals in the 9 games. And no team has been burned worse by Moller this year than the Prince George Cougars - he has eight goals in four games against them.

Still with Chilliwack, Evan Pighin made his debut for them last night and picked up two assists - on Moller's two goals of course.

Rockets forward Jamie Benn feels right at home in the WHL, and has no second thoughts about giving up his NCAA scholarship to Alaska-Fairbanks to play major junior. With 11 points in 13 games, he has quickly become a key piece of the Rockets offence.

A flamboyant, fun-loving, and entertaining player will be in Vancouver tonight for a game against the local squad. No, not David Beckham and his soccer exhibition; it's Tommy Tartaglione and the Prince George Cougars.

And speaking of red-hot goal scorers, I was checking out the Alberta AAA bantam league numbers the other day, and there's a kid there, Ty Rattie of the Airdrie Extreme, who has 31 goals and 53 points in 10 games so far. He is blowing away his competition for league scoring in that league - nobody else in the league has more than 40 points. I haven't yet started following the top bantam prospects for the 2008 WHL bantam draft so I know not of what I speak (the only name I have read mentioned as a possible #1 in 2008 so far is Weyburn AA bantam forward Brent Benson), but at 6'0" and 160 lb, Rattie has the size to be considered a top prospect for sure. So now the question: does he want to play in Portland?

Former Oil Kings & Rockets defenceman Lyon Messier's stay in the OHL is probably about to come to an end. The Erie Otters have placed him on OHL waivers after he produced no points and a -4 in eight games there. My guess is that he'll end up back in the NAHL, where he played last year. Makes you wonder how many doors that have opened for him the last few years opened partly because of his name and not 100% based on his ability.

Tuesday notes

Another light day news-wise, it seems.

Story in the Vancouver paper about Evan Pighin joining the Bruins. Sounds like he will be stepping right onto the top line there with Santorelli and Moller, which means we should fairly soon see him eclipse his point totals (3g-8a) from last year in Red Deer. Considering the Rebels gave him up for basically nothing during the summer, this is another deal (like the Poulter one) which is probably rather quickly going to look bad on Brent Sutter.

After a frustrating injury-plagued start to his WHL career, Giants defenceman Stefan Schneider finally got to make his WHL debut on Sunday.

The Rebels think they may have a lucky Penny. (Bad joke, I know).

As promised, a look at the average age of each team, compared to their winning percentage. Usually you would expect older teams to be higher in the standings, and younger teams lower. Obviously this isn't a hard-and-fast rule since quality of the players is more important than their age, but typically the best players in the league are older ones and so older rosters should be expected to do better, on average.

The numbers: (number in brackets after age and win% is league rank in that category)

Spokane: Avg age: 18.087 (T-6); Win%: 0.806 (1)
Vancouver: Avg age: 17.875 (T-18); Win%: 0.725 (2)
Tri-City: Avg age: 17.875 (T-18); Win%: 0.722 (3)
Medicine Hat: Avg age: 18.077 (11); Win%: 0.684 (4)
Swift Current: Avg age: 18.091 (5); Win%: 0.658 (5)
Regina: Avg age: 18.083 (8); Win%: 0.650 (6)
Moose Jaw: Avg age: 18.042 (14); Win%: 0.647 (7)
Calgary: Avg age: 18.08 (T-9); Win%: 0.625 (8)
Chilliwack: Avg age: 18.125 (T-3); Win%: 0.611 (9)
Brandon: Avg age: 18 (15); Win%: 0.605 (10)
Everett: Avg age: 18.217 (1); Win%: 0.588 (11)
Lethbridge: Avg age: 18.043 (T-12); Win%: 0.579 (12)
Seattle: Avg age: 17.826 (T-20); Win%: 0.567 (13)
Kelowna: Avg age: 17.783 (22); Win%: 0.529 (14)
Edmonton: Avg age: 18.19 (2); Win%: 0.528 (15)
Prince George: Avg age: 18.125 (T-3); Win%: 0.5 (16)
Kootenay: Avg age: 17.958 (16); Win%: 0.476 (17)
Kamloops: Avg age: 18.087 (T-6); Win%: 0.406 (18)
Prince Albert: Avg age: 18.043 (T-12); Win%: 0.368 (19)
Saskatoon: Avg age: 17.913 (17); Win%: 0.324 (20)
Red Deer: Avg age: 17.826 (T-20); Win%: 0.286 (21)
Portland: Avg age: 18.08 (T-9); Win%: 0.167 (22)

You have to be impressed by the performance of teams like Vancouver and Tri-City, who are 2nd and 3rd in the league in the standings despite being in the top-five youngest rosters as well. Conversely, teams like Kamloops and Prince George are amongst the older rosters in the league but find themselves at the bottom of the standings. And despite being an expansion team, Edmonton is actually the 2nd-oldest team in the league....which explains their modest success so far this year.

Monday musings

Slow news day today, it seems....

The Ice are down a player this week after 19 year old defenceman Paul MacDonald left the team last Friday for "personal reasons". It's believed he was unhappy with his ice time, but when you're still a 6th/7th defenceman calibre player at 19, you can't expect 20-25 minutes a night. MacDonald had injury troubles in his career but also never really progressed over what he was at 17 either.

A sign Brent Sutter might not be a mad junior hockey genius: his decision to ditch Alex Poulter this summer in favour of younger players. The Rebels got a 5th round pick for the 18 year old Poulter, who is playing very well in Prince George and has 10 goals so far. Uh, that's twice as many goals as anyone on the offence-starved Rebels has. Are the Rebels really going to be better off next year for having a 17 year old like Willie Coetzee or Mike Krgovich or Spencer Edwards or the 18 year old Tyler Penny play there this year instead of the 18 year old Poulter, whose spot one of them took?

UPDATE: speaking of players Sutter gave up on, Chilliwack has picked up Evan Pighin. Pighin was the other player traded to Prince George by the Rebels this past summer, but the Cougars dropped him (and thus the Rebels got nothing for him) when he told the Cougars he would rather play in the BCHL this year. He currently leads the BCHL in scoring with 42 points in 21 games, and has apparently decided to give the WHL another shot with Chilliwack. We'll see how he does.....he was nothing special last year in Red Deer as an 18 year old rookie.

Friday notes

Two days after being a healthy scratch for the second time in three games (and telling a reporter he didn't know why he wasn't playing), the Rockets have washed their hands of the enigma that is Justin Bernhardt and traded him to Prince Albert for a 2009 4th round bantam pick. The pick will be upgraded to a 3rd rounder if Bernhardt plays as an overager in the WHL next year. Bernhardt has the talent to be a point-a-game player in the league but has never had the fire. This is his third team in a year now.

Dean Clark has identified the problem in Kamloops, and it's him. Or partly him and his negative attitude, anyway. Check out Gregg's blog for his whole article on Clark and his resolve to be a more positive person and to start clearing up the air of negativity around the Blazers. First order of business? The team's theme song ("Takin' Care of Business") will be replaced with "Don't Worry, Be Happy".

There are 351 current and former WHL players using their WHL scholarship monies this year, at a variety of schools across North America. If you're wondering where some of your past favourites now ply their trade (or learn a trade), the WHL site has the complete list. Amongst the discoveries: former Winter Hawk Kelly Friesen is apparently training to be a pilot, while former Hawk/Cane/Blade tough guy Matt Fetzner has apparently joined the Canadian Forces and is training for a career as an officer there.

The Moose Jaw-Regina rivalry - usually one of the WHL's nastiest - has been in a bit of a rut lately. That may come to an end tonight, when the two teams meet for the first time since Pats defenceman Colten Teubert knocked Warriors sniper Riley Holzapfel out with what the Warriors felt was a cheap shot. Teubert and the Pats say they're ready to play the game however Moose Jaw wants to play it.

Day Two of Jon Rosen's "Road Tips" diary of Everett's Central swing is up. This one covers the day-of-game events leading up to last night's loss to the Rodeo Kings.

To the NHL......and not for the squeamish: Edmonton Oilers defenceman Matt Greene breaks his ankle on Tuesday. This isn't something I would normally post (gruesome injuries?) but I post it because you have to admire this guy's toughness. He's up on his knees immediately and appears to be trying to get back to his feet even. He has to be persuaded by teammates and the refs to wait for the trainer. This despite the fact that he had to have known the ankle was bad....seems to me when your foot gets twisted 180 degrees from where it should be, you might feel a little something.

Thursday thoughts

I don't comment often on the CHL Top Ten, but this week's rankings make me scratch my head. Why is Calgary the top-ranked WHL team when they are 2-5 in their last 7 games and are now only the 7th-best team in the WHL when ranked by winning percentage? It's good to see the .800 Spokane Chiefs crack the list, but where are the .735 Vancouver Giants? Calgary lost to Edmonton at home last week, for cryin' out loud.....the Hitmen need to be moving down on this list while teams like the Giants and Chiefs and Tigers should be higher.

The Edmonton Oil Kings will change their name for one game tonight, becoming the Edmonton Rodeo Kings (complete with special uniforms) as they entertain the Everett Silvertips. The change is part of the festivities surrounding the Canadian Finals Rodeo which is held in Edmonton every year. WHL observers who saw the Silvertips play in their early years will note the appropriateness of holding "Rodeo Night" to coincide with a visit from Everett.

Speaking of Everett's road trip, it looks like their p-b-p guy, Jon Rosen, will be taking a page out of Saskatoon beat writer Cory Wolfe's notebook and will be keeping a trip log on the Silvertips website. The first installment, dealing with the drive from Everett to Edmonton, is up there now. After American readers got to read Wolfe's Canadian perspective on their cities, now us northerners get to see Rosen's American take on ours. Also sounds like they'll have pictures posted as well, although technical problems have prevented any photos from accompanying the first installment.

Everett is actually looking forward to getting out on the road, according to what they told Nick Patterson for this article.

A couple WHL teams got into the Halloween thing yesterday, with Moose Jaw and Calgary having pictures on their sites. Then there's Portland, where they have 25 guys who have been dressing up like a WHL team a couple times a week since late September.

Was that a bit low? I'll make up for it with this link to the blog of Winter Hawks p-b-p voice (and really good guy) Andy Kemper, who is blogging today about the Hawks journey north to Medicine Hat for half of their Central division obligations. Yes, half....the Hawks play on Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, and Kootenay on this trip and need to return to Alberta again in January to play Edmonton, Red Deer, and Calgary.

To the NHL.....I hate to use this blog to debate politics, but at least in this case it's hockey related. Some separatist lawyer in Quebec has his panties in a bunch because Montreal Canadiens captain Saku Koivu made remarks only in English during the team's home opener on October 13. He insists that he has a "right to be served in his language". Not by a private citizen of a private business, he doesn't. He no more has a "right" to demand Koivu speak to Canadiens fans in French than Koivu does to go to this guy's law practice and demand service in English. Is it good business to be able to speak the customer's preferred language? Yes. A "right"? Not a chance. If you don't like it, take your business elsewhere. Official bilingualism guarantees Canadians access to federal government services in their choice of either language, but beyond that there is nothing requiring anyone to be able to speak a particular language - even in Quebec. The fact that some separatists seem to think they should be able to dictate this makes you wonder what their vision for individual rights in an independant Quebec is.....

To get this back to hockey, is it any wonder that many players - including many francophone players who probably grew up cheering on the bleu, blanc et rouge - no longer want to play in Montreal? Who wants to put up with this kind of crap seemingly every day, having to deal with people who think what language you speak is equally or even more important than whether you're a good player? Where you have politicians trying to dictate what language should be spoken on the ice, on the bench, in the dressing room, in public? There is a (small) segment of the population that seems unwilling to accept anyone in their midst who is not pur laine Quebecois. And all this on top of what is already one of the most hockey-mad environments in the world, with some of the most demanding fans? It's a headache many players just don't want or need.