Monthly Archives: September 2014

To stay or go? Anthony Duclair’s play gives Rangers something to think about

27 Saturday Sep 2014

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Anthony Duclair wants to make it hard for the New York Rangers.

Quebec's Anthony Duclair is trying to stick with the Rangers.

Quebec’s Anthony Duclair is trying to stick with the Rangers.

The speedy 19-year-old sniper from the Quebec Remparts and the 80th overall pick in the 2013 NHL Draft is hoping to make the Rangers brain trust think long and hard about keeping him on the team’s roster instead of sending him back to his Quebec Major Junior Hockey League team.

“I’m trying to make this team for sure,” Duclair told MSG Networks between periods of the Rangers 4-1 preseason win over the Chicago Blackhawks in Chicago Friday’s night.”I’m not a kid looking to go back to junior.”

And if he scores more goals like the one he notched midway through the first period of Friday night’s game, Duclair could find himself skating on Broadway. It was his first NHL goal.

“I thought I was going to be nerveous, but I handled it pretty well with the help of the guys here, talking to me, telling me to relax,” Duclair told Blueshirts United after the game.

Duclair registered 50 goals and 49 assists in 59 games last season for Quebec. Though his 2013-14 stats were impressive, Rangers management entered training camp thinking that Duclair could benefit from another year of seasoning in the QMJHL.

But Duclair has other ideas.

 

 

Vancouver Sun runs a less than sunny caption with photo of Jordan Subban

24 Wednesday Sep 2014

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The publication is named The Vancouver Sun but the caption with the photo was hardly enlightening.

Defenseman Jordan Subban, the Vancouver Canucks’ fourth-round draft pick in 2013, scored his first-ever NHL goal in Tuesday night’s preseason game against the San Jose Sharks. After scoring the goal, a happy Subban celebrated with his teammates, a moment captured in a photograph published in The Sun’s online edition.

The picture was fine. The caption that accompanied it, not so much. It said: Vancouver Canucks celebrate goal by Jordan Subban (dark guy in the middle) against San Jose Sharks in NHL pre-season game at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, B.C. on September 23, 2014.

https://twitter.com/CBCCanada/status/514790859985137664/photo/1

“Dark guy in the middle.” Really? Glad the cutline cleared up that confusion.

Jordan Subban

Jordan Subban

To add some bones to the caption’s obsession with Subban’s flesh: Jordan Subban was the 115th player selected in the 2013 draft. He’s the youngest brother of Montreal Canadiens defenseman P.K. Subban and Boston Bruins goaltending prospect Malcolm Subban.

Jordan was a top defenseman last season for the Bellville Bulls of the Ontario Hockey League. The diminutive 19-year-old notched 12 goals and 30 assists for the Bulls in 65 games. Big brother P.K., who won the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s best defenseman in 2013, on several occasions has said Jordan is a cerebral blue-liner who can teach him a thing or two about playing defense.

The Sun and Vancouver’s Province newspaper apologized for the insensitive caption, but it’s still the latest racially clumsy episode before the first puck drops on the NHL’s 2014-15 season. First EA Sports inexplicably depicts St. Louis Blues tough guy Ryan Reaves about 15 shades too dark in its NHL video game, now the crazy Subban caption.

Subban took the episode in stride.

“I heard about that,” he told The Province Wednesday. “I had a chance to talk to a representative from the paper and it seemed like a pretty honest mistake. Am I worried about it? No. If people should be talking about something, it should be the way I played last night rather than that. Hopefully, it will just die down.

“It was just unfortunate. I don’t think there were any bad intentions. It is what it is and I’ve moved on and I’m sure everyone else will, too.”

Subban is on his way back to Bellville. The Canucks cut him and three other players and shipped them back to their major junior hockey teams.

 

Anaheim Ducks ink 2014 playoff star Devante Smith-Pelly to a two-year deal

17 Wednesday Sep 2014

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Devante Smith-Pelly only scored two goals and 10 assists in 19 games for the Anaheim Ducks last season.

Devante Smith-Pelly

Devante Smith-Pelly

But the rugged 22-year-old right wing with the hyphenated last name made a name for himself in the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs, showing the power and promise of things to come. On a team loaded with scorers like Ryan Getzlaf and Teemu Selanne, Smith-Pelly topped the Ducks with five playoff goals in 12 games.

Anaheim rewarded him Tuesday with a two-year contract with undisclosed terms. ESPN.com reported that the deal is worth $800,000 per season.

“I’m pretty relieved to get it done,” Smith-Pelly said on the Ducks’ website. “This is my first process going through something like this, so I wasn’t sure how long it would take. There’s a long process to it. I wasn’t sure if it was going to come this close to camp, but at the same time, I knew something would get done before.”

Taken in the second round with the 42nd overall pick in the 2010 NHL Draft, Smith-Pelly proclaimed himself happy with last season’s playoff scoring run but added that he wasn’t completely satisfied because the Ducks “would have liked to go forward and win the thing.”

“On a personal level, it was good for me and good for my confidence,” he said. “I learned a lot and had a lot of fun the whole time.”

With the contract negotiations behind him. Smith-Pelly said he can concentrate on having a good training camp and work towards becoming a regular top-six forward on the team.

Ducks Head Coach Bruce Boudreau “shuffles the lines and, with the way I play, I can be successful on any type of line,” Smith-Pelly said.

“I’m just trying to get better,” he added. “If it ends up being in a top-six position, hopefully I can contribute offensively and keep my physical game. If it’s bottom-six, hopefully it’s the same. I’m the type of player that can play in any kind of role, and I’ll accept any role I’m given.”

 

 

 

Show me the Color of Hockey

14 Sunday Sep 2014

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With the 2014-15 National Hockey League season just a few weeks away, I’d like to see and hear from hockey fans of color about your hockey experiences – as players young and old, as parents, as teams, as fans, whatever.

I’d like to post your photos accompanied by a bit of information about you: how you got involved in the game, what you love about it, and who’s your favorite player. I’d, also like to know your predictions on which team will win the Stanley Cup, which player will win the scoring title, and who’ll be the league’s most valuable player.

Once I get enough responses I’ll post the results, hopefully before the puck drops at the NHL’s first regular-season game next month. So don’t be shy, send your pictures and stories to colorofhockey3582@yahoo.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

 

Former NHLer Mike Grier to coach all-star team of American hockey prospects

04 Thursday Sep 2014

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Mike Grier already has his strategy down for coaching a squad of some of the best 2015 NHL draft-eligible players born in the United States: just open the bench door and point them to the ice.

“You’ve got all the best players around so you won’t have to do too much,” Grier told me. “I’ll keep everyone involved and keep the lines flowing.”

Grier will test his coaching philosophy on September 25 when he serves as a bench boss at the CCM/USA Hockey All-American Prospects Game at the First Niagara Center in Buffalo, home of the Buffalo Sabres.

“It’s definitely an honor to be involved in this event,” Grier said. “It’s a big deal for USA Hockey and you’ll have a lot of NHL teams watching.”

Rugged forward Mike Grier had two stints with the Buffalo Sabres during his 15-year NHL career (Photo/Bill Wippert)

Rugged forward Mike Grier had two stints with the Buffalo Sabres during his 15-year NHL career (Photo/Bill Wippert)

Forty-two players who’ll be eligible for the 2015 NHL Draft will compete on teams coached by Grier – who played 15 seasons for the Sabres, Edmonton Oilers, Washington Capitals, and San Jose Sharks – and Eddie Olczyk, the lead hockey analyst for the NHL on NBC and NBC Sports Network.

Olczyk played 16 seasons for the Chicago Blackhawks, New York Rangers, Toronto Maple Leafs, Winnipeg Jets, Los Angeles Kings, and Pittsburgh Penguins. He helped guide the Rangers to its Stanley Cup victory in 1994 and is a member of the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame.

A Detroit native and Boston University hockey standout, Grier was the NHL’s fourth  U.S.-born black player. He followed Indiana-born forward Donald Brashear, Maine’s Mike McHugh, and Ocala, Florida’s Valmore James who became the NHL’s first African-American player when he debuted with Sabres in the 1981-82 season.

James and Brashear were tough guys, on-ice enforcers known more for their fists than their scoring touch. Grier combined toughness with scoring. He was the NHL’s first African-American player to score more than 20 goals in a season. He finished his career with 162 goals, 383 total points and 510 penalty minutes in 1,060 games.

Grier played for Team USA at the 1995 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship and won a bronze medal skating for the U.S. at the 2004 IIHF Men’s World Championship.

“It’s really something that I’m proud of, being one of the first to break through,” Grier said.  “The (minority) players who are coming up now are skill players who are contributing to their teams. It’s only natural to get more kids of color in the game.”

These days, Grier is involved in coaching youth hockey coaching and he served as an on-ice instructor last month at USA Hockey’s Boys’ Select 17 Player Development Camp.

“I’m just seeing what comes,” Grier said. “I like working with kids on the player development side of it and giving back to the kids.”