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Monthly Archives: November 2015

NHL is so close yet so far for Sabres prospects Bailey, Baptiste, and Rodrigues

30 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Buffalo Sabres, Connor McDavid, Edmonton Oilers, Justin Bailey, Nick Baptiste

The Buffalo Sabres expect forwards Justin Bailey, Nick Baptiste and Evan Rodrigues to be pillars in the team’s rebuilding process to respectability and Stanley Cup contention.

But for now, they can be found behind pillars inside the Blue Cross Arena at the War Memorial, home of the Rochester Americans of the American Hockey League.

After tearing up the OHL, Justin Bailey is learning the pro game at AHL Rochester.

After tearing up the OHL, Justin Bailey is learning the pro game at AHL Rochester.

“In the locker room, there’s a corner of the room where there’s a couple of pillars and it’s kind of tough to see in that corner,” Bailey told me recently. “That’s where they stuck me, Evan and Nick. I think it’s kind of a rookie thing.”

It’s about 75 miles from Blue Cross Arena to First Niagara Center, the Sabres home barn. Only a one-hour, 15-minute drive from Rochester to Buffalo via Interstate 90, Bailey, Baptiste and Rodrigues are so close to their National Hockey League dreams. Yet they’re so far.

As rookies, even highly-touted ones, they have dues to pay in the AHL: getting obstructed-view lockers, staying on the ice after practice to collect all the pucks, cleaning the inside of the team bus after road games.

And there are lessons to learn on the ice. The three are finding their way with the Amerks after posting gaudy numbers in the Ontario Hockey League and the NCAA.

“I think it’s just the size and speed and making quick decisions, making sure you’re in the right places defensively,” Baptiste, a Sabres 2013 third-round draft pick, said of the adjustment from Canadian major junior hockey to the pro ranks. “Obviously, goal-scoring and points are tougher in this league. I don’t think my numbers are exactly where I want them to be. But if I keep playing the right way, it will all fall into place.”

Rochester Americans forward Nick Baptiste is adjusting to bigger, stronger, faster AHL (Photo/Micheline Veluvolu, Rochester Americans).

Rochester Americans forward Nick Baptiste is adjusting to bigger, stronger, faster AHL (Photo/Micheline Veluvolu, Rochester Americans).

Baptiste is currently fifth on the Amerks in scoring with 3 goals and 6 assists in 19 games. Bailey is tied for sixth on the team with 2 goals and 6 assists in 20 games. Rodrigues has 2 goals and 4 assists in 19 games.

In the OHL, Baptiste had 32 goals and 32 assists in 53 games in 2014-15 with the Sudbury Wolves and Erie Otters. He scored 12 goals and 11 assists for the Otters in 19 playoff games last season.

He played with Edmonton Oilers forward Connor McDavid,

Rochester's Nick Baptiste is 5th on the team in scoring.

Rochester’s Nick Baptiste is 5th on the team in scoring.

the first player chosen in the 2015 NHL Draft, in Erie last season and with Sabres forward Jack Eichel, the  2015 draft’s Number Two pick from Boston University, during Buffalo’s training camp.

“They’re similar in their speed and the way they see the game,” Baptiste said. “I think Eichel is a bit more of a power guy. He takes wide net a lot with a lot more power, drives hard to the net. I think McDavid is a little more finesse, makes more moves, has a little more stick skill with the puck going to the net. But they’re equally talented. They’re both very good.”

Bailey notched 34 goals and 35 assists in 57 games last season for the OHL’s  Kitchener Rangers and Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. He tallied 7 goals and 7 assists for the Greyhounds in 14 playoff games.

“The first couple of months, there’s been a lot of ups and downs, but I’m definitely starting to settle in now and getting more comfortable,” Bailey, Buffalo’s 2013 second-round draft pick, said of his time in Rochester thus far. “But it’s definitely a huge adjustment.”

Rodrigues and Eichel were teammates at Boston University. Rodrigues scored 21 goals and 40 assists in 41 games for the NCAA Division I Terriers. He keeps up with Eichel, who is seventh among NHL rookies in scoring with 8 goals and 4 assists in 24 games.

“We’ve been in touch a little bit here and there, kind of seeing how each other is doing,” said Rodrigues, who signed with the Sabres as a free agent in April.

Evan Rodrigues joined the Americans after a stellar career at Boston University (Photo/Micheline Veluvolu, Rochester Americans).

Evan Rodrigues joined the Americans after a stellar career at Boston University (Photo/Micheline Veluvolu, Rochester Americans).

And the three Rochester rookies keep close tabs on each other – at the rink and away from it. They commiserate and encourage each other in their obstructed-view portion of the Americans’ locker room.

Bailey and Baptiste are roomies in Rochester. “We kind of became close friends in training camp and playing against each other in the OHL, so it was a no-brainer,” Baptiste said.

Evan Rodrigues has a business degree from Boston University but says "right now I'm kind of focused on being a hockey player."

Evan Rodrigues has a business degree from Boston University but says “right now I’m kind of focused on being a hockey player.”

Playing for the Americans is a bit of a homecoming for Bailey. He grew up in Williamsville, N.Y., about 65 miles from Rochester. Whenever he’s tired of doing his own cooking  – or Baptiste’s – or needs help with laundry, he hits I-90 and heads to his mother’s home.

Karen Buscaglia says it’s a blessing, not a burden, when her son arrives hungry with a pile of dirty clothes. “Having him close means yay!!” she told me recently.

It also means less wear and tear on the family car. Bailey’s mother and his grandparents attend almost every Amerks home game, just as they attended nearly all of Bailey’s games in Kitchener, Ontario – about a two-hour drive from Williamsville. They even made it to some playoff games in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, a 10-hour trek.

“I think it’s so important to support his journey and have his back,” Buscaglia said in a email. “There are many ups and downs on this hockey ride and knowing no matter what happens on the ice you still have a support system that loves you and believes in you makes the journey more fun for him and us. Watching the joy it brings to his grandparents has been worth every road trip.”

Justin Bailey can look into the crowd at Amerks home games and see his mother and grandparents (Photo/Micheline Veluvolu).

Justin Bailey can look into the crowd at Amerks home games and see his mother and grandparents (Photo/Micheline Veluvolu).

It seems almost pre-ordained that Bailey will someday wear Buffalo blue in the NHL. His mother has always been a big fan of the team. Bailey was raised in a condo community where Sabres legends like Michael Peca, Rob Ray and Matthew Barnaby lived.

He left Western New York at 15 to play for former Sabres great Pat LaFontaine and his Long Island Royals Tier 1 AAA Elite hockey team.

Bailey remembers going to a Sabres game when he was five or six years old and Barnaby flipping him a puck after the team’s pre-game warm up.

“Being a huge, huge Sabres fan, that was a huge thing getting a puck like that,” Bailey recalled. “I think that’s what started the dream.”

Now Bailey can almost see Buffalo from his view-challenged locker in Rochester.

“You never know who’s in the building,” he said of Blue Cross Arena. “The (Buffalo) GM could be here today or a scout could be here today watching you. It gives you that added incentive to play at the top of your game every night.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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From Trinidad to Toronto to pro goalie coach, the journey of Sudarshan Maharaj

09 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Anaheim Ducks, Bruce Boudreau, Sudarshan Maharaj

Once upon a time, there was a young boy from Trinidad who fell in love with hockey after his family swapped their warm Caribbean island home for Toronto’s winter cool in search of a better life.

Goalie Coach Sudarshan Maharaj.

Goalie Coach Sudarshan Maharaj.

He went to his first National Hockey League game at the old Maple Leafs Gardens and stood by the low glass, eyes wide as the Toronto Maple Leafs briskly skated through their pregame warm-up routine.

As the Leafs left the ice, a player tossed the boy a puck, a moment that proved to be an epiphany and kismet.

Today, Sudarshan Maharaj is a goaltending consultant for the Anaheim Ducks organization. He helps train, evaluate, and scout goalies for the NHL team coached by Bruce Boudreau – the Maple Leafs player who gave him the cherished puck years ago.

“I told Bruce that story,” Maharaj told me recently. “He was shocked that I remembered. I said ‘Are you crazy? That’s a life-changing moment. It was one of my greatest experiences. My very first hockey game and a Toronto Maple Leafs player dropped a puck for me.’ To this day, if I ever see a young child in the stands I’ll always throw a puck.”

Roaming the Ducks organization, Maharaj spends time with goalies Frederik Andersen and Anton Khudobin in Anaheim; John Gibson and Matt Hackett at the San Diego Gulls, the Ducks’ American Hockey League farm team; and Ryan Faragher and Chris Rawlings at the Utah Grizzlies, Anaheim’s ECHL affiliate.

In a hockey playing and coaching career spanning over three decades, Maharaj has also coached Florida Panthers backup goalie Al Montoya and former NHLers Kevin Weekes, Rick DiPietro, Joey MacDonald, Steve Valiquette, Martin Biron, and Dwayne Roloson.

Sudarshan Maharaj, left, roves the Anaheim Ducks system coaching its goaltenders and scouting for the organization, too.

Sudarshan Maharaj, left, roves the Anaheim Ducks system coaching its goaltenders and scouting for the organization, too.

Maharaj is part of a small but growing army of minorities who’ve entered hockey’s coaching ranks as goalie instructors. Frantz Jean runs the goalies for the Tampa Bay Lightning, a 2014-15 Stanley Cup finalist.

Fred Brathwaite, who tended net for four NHL teams, is a goaltending consultant for Hockey Canada.  Grant Fuhr, who helped backstop the Edmonton Oilers to five Stanley Cups, was a goalie coach for the then-Phoenix Coyotes in the early 2000s.

“I’ve been offered opportunities to be on the bench, but I don’t like it,” he told me. “I like the behind the scene position – I’m not a front-of-the-herd guy. If ever there were a position that I would aspire to, it would be assistant general manager, but I don’t. I love what I do. I’d like to win a Stanley Cup as a goaltending coach.”

Sudarshan “Sudsie” Maharaj’s hockey story is an unconventional tale of immigration, opportunity, prejudice, and perseverance. His family, who’s of Indian descent, relocated from Trinidad to Toronto in 1970 when he was six years old.

His father found work at an auto dealership and worked his way up from washing cars to selling them. Canada took some getting used to, particularly the weather.

“I distinctly still remember the first time I ever saw snow,” Maharaj told me. “We ran outside the apartment complex where we were living and stood there in the snow watching it come down.”

The family’s assimilation to their new country was aided by hockey. Like most Canadians, the Maharaj household gathered around the television on winter Saturdays and watched “Hockey Night in Canada.”

Maharaj was asleep in his mother’s arms when Boston Bruins defenseman Bobby Orr scored his iconic Stanley Cup-winning goal against St. Louis Blues goalie Glenn Hall in 1970.

Watching hockey led to Maharaj taking up the game. First, street hockey with neighborhood kids. Then he joined an in-house hockey league. Maharaj’s oldest brother was a huge fan of Leafs goaltender Bernie Parent and directed his younger brother to the pipes.

“He said ‘That’s it, you have to be a goalie.’ He stuck me in net all the time and then come tryout at the local house league he said ‘Okay, you’re going to tryout in net,'” Maharaj said. “I loved it and ended up playing there the rest of my life. Oh, that mask. The mask and the equipment, and I just loved the position.”

And he was good at it. He was a member of the University of Wisconsin’s hockey team briefly before moving on to York University in Toronto. When no NHL teams knocked on his door, Maharaj packed his pads and headed to Sweden where he played professionally from 1985 to 1991.

Racial taunts and hostility on and off the ice accompanied Maharaj along his hockey journey, and Sweden was no exception. There, some so-called “fans” didn’t like his looks and torched his car.

“One of the young lads didn’t particularly like the color of my skin, me being in the town, and who I was associating with and all that,” Maharaj told me. “So he decided to make a bonfire that night.”

Things could have been worse for him racially in Sweden and North America, Maharaj figures, but his goalie gear offered him a degree of anonymity.

“Back in those days you wore the mask that covered your whole face, so you didn’t get it as much until they knew who you were either before or after,” he told me. “As the years went on, when you’re playing the same people, they knew. You’d have (opposing players) come to the front of the net and say some things that today people would be shocked to hear.”

Maharaj retired as a player in 1991 at age 27. He returned to York University to complete his degree work in English and physical education. About the same time, the school’s goalie coach left the team, and he was asked to fill the vacancy. A career was born.

San Diego Gulls goalie John Gibson is one of Maharaj's pupils.

San Diego Gulls goalie John Gibson is one of Maharaj’s pupils.

He liked coaching so much that he began to instruct goalies on junior teams while working as a school teacher in the greater Toronto area.  His positive results with young goalies caught the attention of the New York Islanders.

He was a goalie coach or goaltending consultant for the Isles from the 2003-04 season to the 2011-12 NHL campaign. In 2013-14, He became goaltending consultant for the Norfolk Admirals, then the Ducks’ AHL team.

The Admirals moved to San Diego this season as part of the AHL’s ambitious west coast expansion and are now called the Gulls.

Maharaj’s pupils past and present sing his praises.  When Faragher was called up by the Ducks from AHL Norfolk for a stint last season he said “being able to get more games down the stretch and working with Sudarshan Maharaj allowed me to feel more comfortable at the AHL level.”

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