Friday notes

Few notes today...

Four prospective WHL overagers - Matt Mackenzie and Brendan Shinnimin of Tri-City, Riley Boychuk of Portland, and Darian Dziurzynski of Saskatoon - have been assigned to their respective NHL teams' AHL affiliates, even though they have not yet signed pro contracts. They will need to sign contracts before the AHL season starts if they are to play in the AHL this season rather than return to the WHL, so fans of their WHL clubs should probably not start to worry too much just yet. But obviously they are impressing the NHL clubs enough that the NHL guys want to get a longer look and see whether they might be ready for the AHL calibre.

Another prospective overager, Kootenay defenceman James Martin, did sign a contract yesterday with the Calgary Flames, whose camp he is attending on a tryout. Obviously he impressed them quite a bit. The Flames also signed another WHLer on a tryout, Red Deer forward Turner Elson. Elson is only 19 though so the Flames promptly returned him to the Rebels for this season. Martin, on the other hand, got assigned to Calgary's AHL affiliate and thus is probably lost to the Ice. This is a blow to the Ice, who were probably counting on having Martin anchoring their blueline when they traded fellow overager Hayden Rintoul in July.

And another overager, Medicine Hat import defenceman Sebastien Owuya, was returned to the WHL from the Winnipeg Jets yesterday. The Tigers, however, have decided to go with defenceman Patrik Parkkonen and forward Adam Rehak as their two imports and so Owuya has been waived. He was unclaimed on WHL waivers so now I guess he just waits to find a place to play. As a "two-spot" player, he is in tough to find a spot in the WHL, where most everyone has a full complement of imports and overagers already. Perhaps the OHL or QMJHL have teams with openings.....

And last bit of news, Vancouver defenceman Zach Hodder has left the Giants and gone home to await a trade. Hodder was Vancouver's first round pick in the 2008 bantam draft but the Giants have a logjam of defencemen on their roster and need to move out a couple. Obviously the decision has been made that Hodder is one of the guys who is going to be moved. He should have some decent value on the trade market.