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Charles and Devin Williams share a goaltending bond and ECHL success

01 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Canisius College, Charles Williams, Devin Williams, Los Angeles Kings, Manchester Monarchs, St. Louis Blues, Tulsa Oilers

Charles and Devin Williams aren’t brothers, but they do belong to hockey’s goaltending brotherhood and have a lot in common.

Both are African-American Michiganders  – Charles from Canton and Devin from Saginaw.

Manchester Monarchs goaltender Charles Williams.

Both were go-to goalies: Charles led tiny Canisius College to its first Atlantic Hockey regular season championship last season and Devin backstopped formidable  Erie Otters teams in the Ontario Hockey League that featured a young phenom named Connor McDavid .

Both were skipped over by National Hockey League teams in recent drafts. Now both are enjoying impressive rookie seasons in the ECHL.

Charles, 25, has continued his winning ways from Canisius to the ECHL’s Manchester Monarchs, a Los Angeles Kings farm team that signed him to a contract in March.

He has a 7-3-1 record in 11 games and a 2.15 goals-against average, third-best in the ECHL. He has a .932 save percentage.

Charles Williams doing for the Manchester Monarchs what he did for Canisius College – locking down the net.

Devin, 22, has been hot for the Tulsa Oilers, a St. Louis Blues ECHL affiliate. He has a 4-2-2 record, 2.80 goals-against average, and a .912 save percentage in 11 games.

Tulsa Oilers goalie Devin Williams.

He was named the CCM/ECHL Goalie of the Month for October after going 4-0 with a 1.83 goals-against average and a .949 save percentage in five games.

Devin signed with Tulsa in September after playing a season of Canadian college hockey at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, where he posted an 8-4-0 record with a 2.80 goalst-against average and .896 save percentage.

“The game is quicker, but the big difference is how smart the guys are,” he told The Tulsa World of the adjustment from college to the pro game. “The higher you move up, I think, the smarter the guys are…I have been putting in a lot of work in practice to make sure I am ready for the game.”

Tulsa Oilers’ rookie Devin Williams earned ECHL Goalie of the Month honors for October (Photo/TeeJay Crawford Photography).

He enrolled at Acadia after he watched Erie teammates like McDavid, Nick Baptiste, Alex DeBrincat, and Dylan Strome get snatched up in NHL drafts.Teams took a pass on Devin despite his being a top OHL goalie, winning the Dave Pinkney Trophy in 2013-14 for having the league’s lowest goals-against average, being a second-team OHL all-star in 2015-16, and posting 73 wins in 102 games between 2014 and 2016.

Devin Williams played for the OHL’s Erie Otters from 2012-13 to 2015-16 (Photo/Aaron Bell/OHL Images).

While going to college helped keep Devin’s pro dreams alive, switching colleges helped re-ignite Charles’ pro ambitions.Charles had a decent career at NCAA Division I Ferris State University, posting a  22-15 record, 3.00 goals-against average, and a .899 save percentage over three seasons.

He missed the entire 2014-15 season at Ferris State because of injury. He was granted a fifth year of NCAA eligibility and transferred to Canisius, a D-I school in Buffalo, New York.

Goaltender Charles Williams was a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award, given to NCAA Division I’s best college hockey player, for his 2016-17 season at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York (Photo/Canisius College).

There, he compiled a 15-6-4 record in 34 regular season appearances last season and helped lead the Golden Griffins on a 17-game unbeaten string.A 2017 Hobey Baker Award finalist, Charles led all NCAA D-I goalies with a .946 save percentage, tied for second with 6 shutouts, and his 1.83 goals-against average was second-best in the nation .

No wonder that Canisius named Charles its Male Athlete of the Year for 2017.

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Canisius College goalie Charles Williams named Hobey Baker Award finalist

16 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Atlantic Hockey, Canisius College, Charles Williams, Frozen Four, Hobey Baker Award

Canisius College goaltender Charles Williams is a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award, the coveted prize for the top NCAA Division I men’s hockey player.

Canisius College goalie Charles Williams.

Williams, a transfer graduate student who’s enjoying an outstanding year between the pipes for the tiny Buffalo college, was one of 10 players chosen as Hobey Baker finalists by the NCAA’s 60 D-I hockey head coaches and by online voting by fans.

“It is a true honor to be mentioned with a lot of great names,” Williams told the Buffalo News Wednesday. “Being the first in school history is a great honor, too.”

The field of finalists will be whittled down to three – called the Hobey Baker hat trick – on March 30. The winner of the award will be announced April 7 during the 2017 NCAA Frozen Four tournament in Chicago.

Canisius College goalie Charles Williams has been a nightmare for shooters this season, making him a 2017 Hobey Baker Award finalist (Photo/Canisius College).

Williams, a Canton, Michigan, native led all D-I goalies with a .946 save percentage during the 2016-17 regular season. He was tied for first with 5 shutouts and second in the nation with a 1.83 goals-against average.

He finished with a 15-6-4 record and helped backstop the Golden Griffins on a 17-game unbeaten string dating back to January. He’s also been unbeatable in the Atlantic Hockey conference tournament, leading top-seeded Canisius to semifinal Friday against fourth-seed Robert Morris University.

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Hockey is flowing for Akil Thomas and Charles Williams like Niagara Falls

14 Tuesday Mar 2017

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Akil Thomas, Canisius College, Charles Williams, Niagara IceDogs

Is it something in the Niagara Falls water?

Two hockey players of color on both sides of the border are rolling like the water down the Falls – playing some of the best hockey in their league and their conference.

Akil Thomas, a rookie center for the Niagara Ice Dogs of the Ontario Hockey League, enjoyed a 5-point game – 1 goal and 4 assists – en route to a Niagara 7-1 win against the North Bay Battalion on Sunday.

Niagara IceDogs center Akil Thomas posted a 5-point night Sunday and is second among Ontario Hockey League rookies in scoring (Photo/Terry Wilson/OHL Images).

The performance upped the Florida-born Thomas to 21 goals and 26 assists in 58 games for the IceDogs. He’s second-leading scorer among OHL rookies, the IceDogs’s fourth-leading scorer, and the major junior hockey league’s 81st best scorer.

Thomas, 17, hails from a hockey family: His father, Khalil Thomas, was a career minor league player. His uncle, Leo Thomas, retired  last year as a player for the ECHL’s Fort Wayne Comets and is an assistant coach for the Macon Mayhem of the Southern Professional Hockey League.

Akil Thomas’ dad and mother, Akilah Thomas, are owners of  the Oshawa RiverKings of Canada’s Greater Metro Junior A Hockey League.

While Akil Thomas is on a roll in Canada, Charles Williams is in the flow stopping pucks across the border for Cansius College in Buffalo, New York.

Williams’ strong play over the weekend powered the Golden Griffins past Upstate New York rival Niagara University and helped the team advance to the Atlantic Hockey conference semifinals.

Canisius College goalie Charles Williams beat Niagara University 3-0 and 2-1 over the weekend, advancing the Golden Griffins to the Atlantic Hockey Tournament semifinals.

Williams earned a 3-0 victory against NU’s Purple Eagles on Friday and a 2-1 win on Saturday. The wins extended Canisius’ unbeaten streak to 17 games, dating back to January.

The winner of Atlantic Hockey Tournament gets an automatic berth to the 2017 NCAA Ice Hockey Championship.

A Canton, Michigan native, Williams is a nominee for the Hobey Baker Award, given annually to the top NCAA men’s hockey player. He’s also a semifinalist for the  Mike Richter Award, presented to the best goaltender in NCAA Division I hockey.

Williams, a fifth-year transfer from Ferris State University, posted a 15-6-4  regular season record. He led all NCAA Division I goaltenders with a .944 save percentage and was tied for first with 5 shutouts. He was second among D-I goalies with a 1.83 goals-against average.

 

 

 

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Canisius College scores on a rebound year from goalie Charles Williams

09 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by William Douglas in Uncategorized

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Atlantic Hockey, Canisius College, Charles Williams, Eustace King, Ferris State University, NCAA Frozen Four

Charles Williams felt he wasn’t finished.

He had a decent career in goal at Ferris State University, graduating from the NCAA Division I school in Big Rapids, Michigan, with a 22-15 record, 3.00 goals-against average, and a .899 save percentage.

Charles Williams is one of U.S. college hockey’s best goalies this season.

But Williams felt he still had something to prove in college hockey – and, boy, is Canisius College ever glad.

Williams is having an amazing rebound season at Canisius, a tiny Division I school in Buffalo, New York, and is one of the best goaltenders in U.S. college hockey in 2016-17.

The fifth-year transfer student backstopped a Canisius 15-game unbeaten streak en route to the Golden Griffins’ winning their first-ever Atlantic Hockey regular season title with an 18-4-6 conference record.

The suburban Detroit native leads D-I goaltenders in save percentage (.944) and is tied for the lead in shutouts with 5. He’s second in the nation with a 1.83 goals-against average, an impressive stat considering that he faced 1,004 shots in 31 regular season games and stopped all but 56 of them.

Only five D-I goalies have seen more vulcanized rubber than Williams this season.

Williams’ spectacular season – he posted a 15-6-4 record – earned him a Hobey Baker Award nomination. The award is given annually to the NCAA top men’s hockey player.

Past winners include Jimmy Vesey, a New York Rangers forward who played for Harvard University, in 2016; Buffalo Sabres center and Boston University alum Jack Eichel in 2015; and Calgary Flames forward Johnny Gaudreau, who starred at Boston College, in 2014.

The last goalie to capture the award was Vancouver Canucks’ Ryan Miller way back in 2001 when he played for Michigan State University..

Charles Williams leads NCAA Division I goaltenders in save percentage and is tied for the lead in shutouts with 5 (Photo/Canisius College)

“It’s great, it shows that the hard work has paid off, but at the end of the day, we’re focused on the big goal that we set on the beginning of the year which is a championship,”  Williams said of being a Hobey Baker nominee. “It’s great, but definitely only the beginning.”

The road to that championship starts with winning the Atlantic Hockey Tournament, which would guarantee a berth in the 2017 NCAA Division I Men’s Hockey Tournament. The 2017 Frozen Four Championship is April 6-8 in Chicago at the United Center.

Canisius had an opening round bye in the Atlantic Hockey tourney. The Golden Griffins face Upstate New York rival Niagara University Friday in a three-game tournament series.

Williams, 24, was able to play for Canisius after earning his bachelor’s degree from Ferris State because he had a year of NCAA eligibility left stemming from being  a medical red-shirt due to an injury that cost him his entire 2014-15 junior season.

After appearing in only 11 games as a senior at Ferris State and finishing with a 3-5-1 record, a 3.48 goals-against average, and a .888 save percentage, Williams felt he could do better and thought that transferring to another school would rekindle his career.

“I spoke with my coaches at Ferris and they helped tremendously in terms of reaching out to teams and stuff like that,” Williams told me. “At Canisius, our assistant coach (Trevor Large) played at Ferris before, and that’s what really made my decision a lot easier. I spoke to him a lot. I listened to what he had to say, what they’re building here. It sounded a lot like what I wanted, what I want to be a part of.”

And the change has been beneficial – for Williams and for Canisius.

“We knew that he had been a good goalie, but we knew that it didn’t go as he had planned at Ferris so he was looking for an opportunity,” Canisius Head Coach Dave Smith told the College Hockey News website. “He came in right away, and he didn’t talk, he just worked. He was sincere, he was mature, and he was competitive.”

Williams began playing hockey when he was 13 after his family moved from Detroit to Canton, Michigan. He began playing goal because he got tired of losing games.

“I started off as a (forward) and my brother I were on the same team and our goalie was letting in a lot of goals – we’d lose, like, by 13 or 15, stuff like that,” Williams recalled. “I told my brother ‘If you keep scoring, I’ll try to stop the puck.’ Everyone had to go through a rotation playing goalie and I wanted to volunteer, and it actually worked out great. We started winning and we didn’t want to change it.”

Williams is one of the few black goaltenders in U.S. college hockey history. The College Hockey News, in its research, only came up with five others: Jamie Phillips, a Winnipeg Jets farmhand who played for Michigan Tech from 2012-13 to 2015-16;  Jordan Tibbett, who played for Mercyhurst College from 2010-11 to 2013-14;  Eustace King, a major hockey agent who played for Miami University of Ohio in 1996; Peter Harris for the University of Lowell from 1988 to 1990; and Carey Grandy, a Huntsville, Alabama, native who backstopped Dartmouth College from 1981-83.

Carey Gandy played goal for Dartmouth College from 1981-83 (Photo/Dartmouth Digital Library Collections).

With his stellar 2016-17 season, Williams realizes that he might be drawing the attention of pro hockey scouts.

“I’m really just enjoying my last year and whatever happens with pro, it will all work itself out,” he said.

If it doesn’t, Williams has a Plan B: To use the master’s degree in sports administration that he’s pursuing at Canisius to start his own goalie academy.

“I think that’s something that will fit right in with my mission in hockey,” he said. “That’s what I really want to do.”

 

 

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