Miners move a couple of veterans to make room for youth.

CANADIAN PRESS (Sudbury, ON):

It’s no secret that Sudbury General Manager Terry James is fully committed to a youth movement in the Nickel City. He was at it again on Monday afternoon, making a deal involving two veteran players in order to create room for younger players this year and beyond.

The deal breaks down as follows:

The Miners traded forward Wayne Simmonds, defenceman Sami Vatanen, prospect Giovanni Villati, along with a 10th round pick, 11th round pick and a 12th round pick (all 2019) to Fort Erie in exchange for Christian Dvorak, Kevin Bieksa, highly touted prospects Joel Farabee and K’Andre Miller, two 2020 draft picks (2nd  and 6th round respectively).

The key to the deal from a Miners perspective is the addition of a young, talented player in Dvorak. He is expected to slot into the top line with Vincent Trocheck and Sam Reinhart in time for Wednesday’s game versus Springfield.

“I think this is a good trade for both teams. Dvorak is a solid, developing center. We think he will do well for us. It’s never easy to part with players of Simmonds and Vatanen’s talent and character. They are proven players and will help Fort Erie a lot” stated James. “But, in taking a good look at our club, there comes a time where we have to start giving our young players opportunity to prove themselves and take on bigger roles at the CCHL level.  We are comfortable enough in our progress that we are prepared to do that”.

In prospects Farabee and Miller, the Miners are receiving two, highly touted players both of whom were 1st round picks in this past summer’s CCHL Entry Draft.

Farabee, a former USNTDP player, is in his freshman season at Boston University.  He is seen as a highly skilled player with a great motor and the ability to score goals while still remaining defensively responsible enough to be trusted to kill penalties.

Miller, who is also a USNTDP graduate, is having a standout first year at the University of Wisconsin.  A converted forward and physical specimen, Miller has outstanding two-way potential thanks to his athleticism and mobility on the back end.   

A Weekly Look at the 2018-19 Sudbury Miners: Volume 2

A Weekly Look at the 2018-19 Sudbury Miners:  Volume 2

CANADIAN PRESS (Sudbury, ON):

Miners Weekly Record: 1 wins, 0 losses.
Miners League Standing:  5 wins, 5 losses, 1 OT Loss = 11 points total.  Currently sit in 8th place in the Canosa Conference, 14th overall in the CCHL.
Miners Special Teams:  Power Play – 29.8% (6th); Penalty Kill – 76.3% (13th)
Miners Scoring Leader:  Winger Sam Reinhart (8G – 6A = 14pts; 18th Overall in the CCHL)

The Miners had a relatively light week in the CCHL last week, with only one game – a 2-1 shootout victory over the Hamilton Tigers.  With the win, the Miners were able to climb back to .500 and remain in the thick of the playoff race in the Canosa Conference. 
 “Getting back to .500 is a good step, and with the schedule last week, we were able to work on some things defensively in practice”, stated defenceman Brandon Montour.   “We seem to generate a lot of shots and chances at both ends of the ice, and while that makes for entertaining hockey, it doesn’t always translate to wins”.
The Miners make up for the light schedule from last week with three important conference games this week versus Springfield, Minnesota and Siberia.  Needless to say, it is a big week and good results are needed if the Miners want to remain in the playoff conversation.

MINERS PLAYER PROFILE OF THE WEEK:  Zack Hyman
Hyman is best described as a determined, competitive and mobile winger, with improving hands and a healthy example of intelligent physicality.  His skating stride is compact and quick, powering his way as an engaging forechecker.  He is not going to “wow” anyone with his puck skills, but they have improved year over year.  He is no longer just the first contact forward, the bloodhound flushing out puck for skilled teammates and is starting to contribute with more individual skilled maneuvers, such as getting above the puck for better shooting, heading to the net with quicker releases without sacrificing his trademark physicality.  With the ability to play an penalty killing role as well, he is a versatile player which every team in the CCHL needs to be successful.


MINERS PROSPECT NEED TO KNOW:  Jake Oettinger
Oettinger was the first goaltender taken in the 2017 CCHL draft and has backstopping a loaded, prestigious Boston University program over the past two seasons.  Oettinger has been one of college hockey’s best in the crease, going 21-13-4 with a .915 save percentage and 2.45 goals against average last season, earning Boston University an NCAA tournament appearance. The goaltender of the future for the Miners, has a massive physical frame (6-4”, 212 lbs), excellent play-reading abilities, and his technique allows him to make all the easy saves and rarely get beaten on inside scoring chances. His lateral movement is very refined and intelligent.  His biggest issue right now is transitioning from a standing position to a low butterfly, but he is athletic enough to make that adjustment over time.  He projects to be an upper-to-mid-tier starter in the CCHL.  Expected CCHL arrival:  2022-23.

Dayton Musicmen 1st Ten Games Exceed Expectations...

(We'll be tracking the performance of this year's team in ten game increments. Today, our first assessment of the young season...)

DAYTON MUSICMEN

W/L RECORD: 7-3-0 (4th in the Corfield Conference)
LEADING SCORER: Alexander Radulov (9-5-14 pts.) 14th overall in the league.

Top Performer so far: Devan Dubnyck (7 wins (T1st), 3 losses, .907 save percentage (5th), 2.63 GAA (4th).

With 7 wins out of their first ten games, the Musicmen are already halfway to their total number of wins last season. Their success seems to be built on great goaltending, a stingy defense and a modest offense that could really use an upgrade.

"It's still really early and we've warned the kids, stay focused. It's a long season and a few teams are getting off to an unexpectedly slow start," said GM Bill Corfield.

The 'men are playing well defensively with just 29 goals allowed in the first ten games of the season. "We HAVE to play our systems and Devan HAS to be good for us to hang in there with the other teams in the league," said Corfield.

Captain Mike DelZotto gives credit to the coaches and Dubnyck.

"Without Dubie, there's no telling where we'd be in the standings. The coaches have come up with a simple but effective strategy for us to compete and that's what we're doing."

A Weekly Look at the 2018-19 Sudbury Miners: Volume 1

A Weekly Look at the 2018-19 Sudbury Miners:  Volume 1

CANADIAN PRESS (Sudbury, ON):

Miners Weekly Record: 2 wins, 1 loss, 1 OT Loss.

Miners League Standing:  4 wins, 5 losses, 1 OT Loss = 9 points total.  Currently sit in 8th place in the Canosa Conference, 15th overall in the CCHL.

Miners Special Teams:  Power Play - 31.1% (6th); Penalty Kill – 76.32% (11th)

Miners Scoring Leader:  Winger Sam Reinhart (8G – 6A = 14pts; 13th Overall in the CCHL)

The weather is quickly becoming a little more like true hockey weather as October is quickly wrapping up.   And with it, the CCHL season is now in full swing.

The Miners were extremely busy over the past week having played in four games in seven days, which saw them sport a record of 2 wins, 1 loss, and 1 OT loss.   The team opened the week with a 5-1 loss to the Victoria Ronin, in a contest that they were never really in. The Miners would extend their losing streak with a hard-fought 3-2 shootout loss to the Las Vegas Aces before closing out the week with wins over Georgetown and Long Island.

“We just need to continue to work hard and set realistic goals for us to achieve”, stated veteran forward Mike Fisher.   “It’s a process. Our first step is getting back to .500 and we are almost there. After that, given the group we have, I don’t see why we can’t make a push for a playoff spot?  It’s what our fans deserve”.

MINERS PLAYER PROFILE OF THE WEEK:  Sami Vatanen

Defenceman Sami Vatanen is an undersized sparkplug, who has a reputation as a wild and adventurous puck mover.  He is a talented skater with powerful quick, nimble feet. He skates light and fluid with exceptional lateral agility and quickness accelerating through each stride.  He excels on breakouts, making solid outlet passes and uses his quick feet and dexterity to open lanes. At times, he is an effortless puck carrier executing in top gear and does possess a good, accurate right-handed shot.  He is aggressive and courageous for his size and is proactive in blocking shots and throwing hits, despite just bouncing off bigger opponents. Given his smaller stature, he will need to refine his coverage skills and defensive postures.

MINERS PROSPECT NEED TO KNOW:  Isac Lundestrom

A creative two-way player with pro-level rink discipline, Lundestrom was selected in the first round of this June’s entry draft (18th overall).  Having already played two seasons in the SHL, the 18-year-old is very responsible with the puck and has great timing down already.  Lundestrom has a knack for finding open passing lanes and exposing poor positional play from the opposition and has a strong frame that makes his play on the puck better. He isn’t a forceful offensive player, and his issue with compiling points is due to a lack of assertiveness; he’s imaginative with the puck and has soft hands but is too concerned with defensive efforts to give it his all in the o-zone.  Expected CCHL arrival: 2021-22.

State of the Loons; First 10 Games...

The Loons are out to a fast start and unfortunately, the fans here in Capeside have yet to notice. As the new team on the block here in Massachusetts it seems that the fans are too caught up in the Red Sox World Series run along with the Patriots and Celtics. Or maybe the savvy hockey fans here have yet to buy into this rebuilding team's success.

Through the first 10 games of the season, the Loons are sitting at 7-3 to the surprise of many around the league. In those first 10 we have seen it all from the Loons: a huge upset win over the Fort Erie Falcons, a disappointing home loss to the struggling Dartmouth Lakers and a blowout loss to the surging Seattle Reign. But last night's win might be just what Capeside needed in order to force these spoiled sports fans here in Massachusetts to take notice. Over the course of the summer league and preseason, we saw emotional physical play between the Portland Owls and Loons. The back and forth by the two teams through social media has further fueled the fire and created a rivalry between the two franchises that should lead to must-see hockey for years to come.

The win over Portland wasn't the only good news yesterday for Capeside. Last year, as the Ottawa Barracudas, the team lost over 50 million dollars mainly due to an out of control payroll filled with players well past their primes. The one bright spot to Czepiel's excessive amount of roster moves is that as of right now, barring any further trades -  (unlikely), Capeside stands to make close to 10 million dollars if they hit all their bonuses. After this season close to 40 million in bad contracts comes off the books and the Loons will enter free agency with a payroll of close to only $33 million.

Ten games is a small sample size, and we would be crazy not to expect the cream of the CCHL not to eventually rise to the top, but for now, it is exciting times in Capeside and time for these fans to take notice.

Around the CCHL: (Week of 10/22/18) Donuts Dancing, who really loves home cooking and the finances are here!!!

A look at who's hot, who's not, player movement and other news across the league

Who's Hot: Wisborg - 4 wins in a row and Siberia - 3 wins in a row are the two hottest teams in the CCHL. The Donuts sit tied with two other teams (SEA & MIN) for 1st place with 14 points. The Icecats, after a bit of a wobbly start, seems to have made some lineup adjustments and look more like the team we all expected them to be this season. Siberia sits tied for 13th overall with the Niagara Falls Thunder.

Who's Not: Parry Sound continues to look for their first victory on the young season. Also struggling so far are Springfield and Gillam. The Homers have some work to do but their core group is solid. Gillam is in a bit of a rebuild, so they should bounce around the bottom of the overall standings most of the season.

These teams LOVE home cooking: DAY (5-0-0), WIS (4-0-0) and the Icecats (4-1-0)...

These teams DON'T like to be at home: PAR (0-3-1) and DRT (1-3-0)...

These teams enjoy the road so far: SEA: (4-1-0), VIC (4-1-0) and POR (3-1-1)...

These teams don't so far: SPR: (0-4-0), GIL (0-4-0) and PAR (0-5-1)...

Finances are updated! In what has to be a miserable job, Bobby Nicol and Chris (call me Champ) Kash have the 2018-19 finances up on the website. All teams should be checking their team payrolls for errors and reporting any to Bobby ASAP. 18 of our 22 teams are considered financially healthy. The remaining 4 should be taking steps to stabilize their situation asap. (More info about CCHL Team financial health and requirement can be found in the rules Section K, subsections 2-3.)

"This ain't APBA anymore, Toto!" - Look for the standings to be much tighter in Simon than in the old APBA. One reason is the point awarded for OT and Shootout losses.

From an anonymous GM on Dayton's acquiring Derek Stepan from the Norsemen: "DAY has several high caliber players arriving over the next few seasons. Stepan helps the team they have this season and will show veteran leadership going forward. He's still a solid defensive player with very good faceoff skills. He didn't pay much for him so it should work out. Nice cash savings by Minny, too..."

Around The CCHL (#1): New Season Underway with Simon!

A look at who's hot, who's not, player movement and other news across the league...

For the week of 10/15/18...

(Hey guys, going to strive to post a weekly overview of all things CCHL each Monday throughout the season and at various times during the offseason. Everything is fair game from on-ice performance to transactions and Simon stuff...)

*New Season/New Simulator: After five months of training and planning the CCHL transitioned to a different simulator for the 2018-19 season. Having spent our first sixteen seasons with the old DOS based and long unsupported APBA Hockey Sim software, the move was made to the Simon T Hockey Simulator product. Windows-based and far more user-friendly than APBA, we see a much broader array of statistical reports available to us, dramatically easier Commissioner interphase for the actual simming of games and a robust set of options for enhanced league play going into the future. 

*Scoring is almost identical to APBA: I compared the GF and GA on a per game basis from last year to our numbers so far this season, through last night's games inclusive. I reviewed the top and the bottom five teams in both seasons.

APBA - 2017-18   -   Top 5 Goals for per game - 4.2 gpg

APBA - 2017-18   -   Bottom 5 Goals against per game - 2.2 gpg

SIMON - 2018-19 - Top 5 Goals for per game - 4.1 gpg

SIMON - 2018-19   - Bottom 5 Goals against per game - 2.2 gpg

So far, it seems almost identical to what we saw the best and worst teams do in terms of scoring when we compare the two sims head to head on this metric. I can't think of any reason it would change dramatically going forward, but we'll keep an eye on how Simon compares to APBA for sure...

*Who's Hot: Team of the Week - Seattle Reign - With a perfect 5-0-0 record, the Reign sit atop the CCHL standings. Portland (4-0-3) and Georgetown (4-0-1) are the only two teams to yet suffer a defeat this season.

*Who's Not: Parry Sound Orrsmen - (0-6-1) The Orrsmen are just too good to continue on this way, look for a correction to arrive in the next week or so. Dartmouth and Gillam (both 1-5-1) are also off to a cold start and collectively share a -41 in goal differential on the young season.

*Owls this possible? Who thought Mikael Granlund and Mikko Rantanen of Portland would be leading the CCHL scoring race after the first couple weeks? 

*Finances are on the way!!! I was alerted by Bobby Nicol yesterday that we should look for the new financials to be uploaded to the CCHL website sometime Monday evening. Yes!

*Simon Stuff #1: To my knowledge, every team is now on board with the creation, saving and sending of lines into the league office. The inflow of lines into the league office seems normal for this time of year. Usually, I'll receive between 4-6 files a day from teams wanting to update their lines.

*Simon Stuff #2: A reminder that we track GM performance in several different categories throughout the season. We track how many lines a team sends in, how many illegal lineups that require correction occur, how many trade blocks are sent out and a misc. tracking of "other" type things like "I'll be out of town on such and such a date..." or "My computer just died, I may need help for a couple days until I get it fixed" are essential to keep good communication in place throughout the league's members and the league office. We also track complaints we get from GM's about other GM's not responding to trade offers. The expectation is to acknowledge the inquiry within 48 hours. Don't be that guy that doesn't respond, ok?

*Simon Stuff #3: I've been asked if there's a different way to handle trade blocks and my short answer is, no, there isn't. If I created a webpage on the site just for trade wishes, yes, the info would be in one central location, but unless a team actually went to the page, they wouldn't see the info. By keeping it on an email basis, the thought is that at least a GM will see the trade block in their inbox and (hopefully) give it a quick read.

*Try this: There is an additional way to communicate to the league who is available and who isn't within your line editor software. Open up your line software, go to your roster page. As you select a player, you'll see an area on the right side of that screen above the EXIT icon that says "AVAILABLE FOR TRADE" and "NO TRADE." Choose a player you want to highlight, and then click on the applicable option. This info will be saved along with your line combinations when you send it into the league office. Teams are able to review other team's info as to who's available and who isn't. This doesn't replace the trade block nor do you receive credit for it like sending out a trade block, but it may be a fairly easy way to passively communicate with other teams on this issue.

Have a good week!