Latest News
TROTTER & AVTSIN-Going and Coming
You win some and lose some. Although it’s not official, it would appear that the Canadiens top minor league goalscorer, Brock Trotter, is headed for Latvia and the Dynamo Riga team of the KHL. At the same time, a longshot draft choice of the Habs two years ago, Alexander Avtsin, will be abandoning Moscow Dynamo for the Canadiens. Trotter, a restricted free agent, reportedly signed a one year contract with Riga abandoning a potential 900-thousand dollar deal should he have made the Canadiens. Avtsin’s deal would get him 600-thousand should he make the big team.
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- TROTTER & AVTSIN-Going and Coming
- Canadiens Announce Six Changes in Hockey Department
- HABS FACE DECISIONS IN MARKOV ABSENCE
- CUNNEYWORTH & LADOUCEUR NAMED TO HAMILTON COACHING POSITIONS
- CANADIENS SIGN CEDRICK DESJARDINS/RYAN RUSSELL-Two-Way Contracts
- MINOR LEAGUE DEPTH ALLOWS CANADIENS OFF-SEASON FLEXIBILITY
- STATUS QUO (ALMOST) FOR OFF-SEASON CANADIENS
About Ron Reusch
Ron Reusch covered sports both nationally and internationally over five decades. (1960s through 2010). Based in Montreal, Ron worked on the English language play-by-play broadcasts of the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens and NL’s Montreal Expos.
As a member of the CTV Television Network, Ron covered a variety of including the 1980, 1984, 1988 and 1994 Winter Olympic Games and the 1976, 1984 and 1992 Summer Olympic Games. He also did play-by-play for CTV’s coverage of the first three Canada Cup hockey tournaments (1976, 1981 and 1984) and served as color commentator to Dan Kelly’s play-by-play for the NHL’s 1984–85 and 1985–86 seasons on CTV plus the 1987 Canada Cup. Other CTV assignments included live broadcasts of the Indianapolis 500 (6 times), and the Canadian Grand Prix.
Canadiens
Canadiens GM Pierre Gauthier put his personal stamp on the Canadiens with the announcement of six changes in his hockey department.Serge Boisvert and Ryan Jankowski will join the Canadiens’ amateur scouting group. Vaughn Karpan becomes a professional scout, and Christer Rockstrom will assume scouting duties for European leagues as of September 1st.
At the administrative level, the team announced the appointment of Ken Morin as hockey information coordinator.
Finally, Pierre Allard becomes the Canadiens’ new strength and conditioning coach.
The Canadiens are going to have to play their first fifteen games of the season or so without the services of defencman Andrei Markov. How the team adjusts to his absence may tell the story of the entire season.
There was a time when the Canadiens didn’t have enough players on their so-called “reserve list” to stock a full American Hockey League franchise. The legacy of Bob Gainey will be his restocking of the minor league system. Seventeen players from the Hamilton Bulldogs saw action with the Canadiens during the 2009-2010 season. The depth of the organization will allow head coach Jacques Martin the luxury of cherry picking the Bulldogs talent to fill out his roster in the coming season and once again give him confidence that there will be adequate replacements when inevitable injuries strike the team during the coming year.
With just under two months remaining until training camp the Canadiens have 20 players signed. They have 4.72 million dollars in cap space with which to sign Carey Price and two other players, likely off the Hamilton Bulldogs roster. Changes are minimal. The veteran third and fourth line centres were let go to free agency. New faces will include centres Lars Eller and Dustin Boyd plus goaltender Alex Auld. Outside of that, it’s status quo for a team that made a nineteen game playoff run.
Larry Carriere, most recently the Washington Capitals pro-scout, will join the Canadiens in the role of assistant to general manager Pierre Gauthier. Carriere was a second round draft choice of the Buffalo Sabres in 1972. He layed on five NHL teams. He was assistant GM of the Buffalo Sabres for 9 years before joining the Washington Capitals as pro scout in 2004. Carriere is one of the first graduates of Canadian University Hockey (Loyola) to play in the NHL.
Canadiens Trade Up To Draft Defenceman Jarred Tinordi
The Canadiens knew what they wanted and when it appeared that defenceman Jarred Tinordi wasn’t going to be available when their 27th spot in the NHL Entry draft came, they traded up five spots and sacrificed their second round draft pick in order to get him.
Hockey-General News
CUNNEYWORTH & LADOUCEUR NAMED TO HAMILTON COACHING POSITIONS No-one saw this one coming. The Canadiens have hired Randy Cunneyworth to be head coach of the Hamilton Bulldogs and Randy Ladouceur as his assistant. Cunneyworth was an assistant coach with Atlanta the last two seasons and prior to that was with the Rochester Americans of the AHL for nine years. Ladouceur served as an assistant coach for ten season in the NHL including eight with the Hartford/Carolina franchise.
CANADIENS SIGN CEDRICK DESJARDINS/RYAN RUSSELL-Two-Way ContractsThe Canadiens have signed two more minor leaguers, goaltender Cedrick Desjardins and forward Ryan Russell, to one year/two-way contracts. Desjardins led all AHL goaltenders last season with a 2.00 goals-against average in 47 games. Russell finished sixth on the Hamilton Bulldogs with 37 points including 19 goals
EX-HAB BOUILLON GETS TWO-YEAR NASHVILLE CONTRACT Defenceman Francis Bouillon was one of the eleven players Canadiens general manager Bob Gainey considered expendable when he trashed the 2008-09 Canadiens last June. Bouillon signed with Nashville just before last season started. He turned out to be a bargain for the Predators. He led all Nashville defencemen at plus-5 with a modest 3 goals and 8 assists. The team this week rewarded him with a two eyar 2.7 million dollar contract, effectively doubling last year’s paycheck.
THE NEXT COACH OF THE HAMILTON BULLDOGS? The replacement for Guy Boucher? The rumour mill drums have been banging out a list of candidates for the job. The names we’re hearing most are, from the QMJHL, Rouyn-Noranda head coach and GM Andre Tourigny; Gatineau coach Benoit Groulx, perennial candidate Patrick Roy and Montreal Juniors coach and GM Pascal Vincent. The most mentioned English speaking candidates are Canadiens assistant Kirk Muller and coach of the ECHL’s Cincinnati Cyclones Chuck Weber.
SLIM PICKINGS AMONG NHL UFA’S-ACTIVE TRADE MARKET LOOMS It would seem that if an NHL team wants to do a major overhaul of it’s roster, a la the 2009 Canadiens, they’re going to have to go to the trade market. It’s a given that this year’s crop of NHL unrestricted free agents is the thinnest one ever. It probably means that the likes to Tomas Plekanec is going to get a much larger contract than his statistics would indicate. What we may see is unprecedented activity in the trade market because of pending salary cap issues.
JACQUES LEMAIRE FLORIDA HOME GUTTED BY FIRE The Newark New Jersey Star Ledger reported that the Florida home of Canadiens Hall of Famer Jacques Lemaire burned to the ground two weeks ago. The fire was believed to have been caused by an electrical fault. Lemaire and his wife Mychele had been in the house only 24 hours before the fire started.
CHARGES LAID OVER PAT HICKEY CAR VANDALISM The Philadelphia Daily News reported today that 21 year old Daniel Hazlett of northeast Philadelphia has been charged in connection with the vandalism of the car owned by Gazette hockey reporter Pat Hickey during the Stanley Cup semi-final series in Philadelphia. One thousand dollars damage was done to Hickey’s 1999 Honda and the license plate
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GUY BOUCHER TO JOIN TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING Hamilton coach Guy Boucher is going to be head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning next season according to Martin Leclair of ruefrontenac.com, the website manned by striking members of the Journal de Montreal. New Tampa general manager Steve Yzerman will make it official at a news conference tomorrow.
