Been a long but enjoyable few days away from home – only now beginning to catch up – but here’s a cheap cop-out little of what we ran across over the last week or so from the haunts of Stanley C. after the jump…
- A big couple of days for Panthers 2010 draftees, as first-round F Nick Bjugstad (for the last time: he’s not Irish) scored twice in Wednesday’s Team USA 6-3 victory over Finland at the National Junior Evaluation Camp at Lake Placid. Fellow Cats prospect Connor Brickley also participated, as did Finland’s Joonas Donskoi. And apologies; like most international hockey sites, getting a for-real box score is an impossibility.
- Will D Mike Weaver close the iron gates on a 2010-11 Erik Gudbranson rookie season with Florida? Or was it management, who signed eight defensemen to one-ways? And did Stewie truly desire this?
- Former Panthers head coach Doug MacLean will be inducted into the Prince Edward Island Sports Hall of Fame on Friday. Raise a rat’s corpse and tip ‘yer hat to the man behind Florida’s on-ice prowess in 1996 for getting his just desserts in the Land of Crosby. Besides, according to the story, MacLean has:
“An outstanding hockey mind, whose insight and knowledge of the NHL is incomparable, MacLean will be a popular and welcome addition to the P.E.I. Sports Hall of Fame, notes a media release.”
Yeah, we “bold”ed it; editorials from Columbus are beginning stack up. In other news, The Litter Box’s “knowledge of the NHL is incomparable, and will be a popular and welcome addition to the Central Palm Beach County Professional Hockey Writers Association, Local 213, notes an (undisclosed) media release.” Can I do that? Sure I can. Moving along…
- Panthers prospect F Garrett Wilson prefers balls of the orange variety. So did Sami Salo.
- Everyone’s favorite co-majority-owner-for-a-day Stu Siegel has wasted no time in filling the gaps between Panthers Foundation meetings and NHL Board of Governors soirees at The Breakers with a nifty startup idea.
- From the local youth hockey circuit, middle school-aged players will finally be served with a league of their own, as the newly-minted MSHL begins play in September from the Saveology Iceplex with at least one game per team to be held at BankAtlantic Center during the season. Sweet.
- Florida now literally posseses a Fast Panther. And Rochester has a brutally lower-scoring offense on paper as a result. For now.
- Lastly, meet your new ECHL overlord./