Millers land Captain Serious in Toews

The Millers continue their bid to get back into the playoffs, acquiring C Jonathan Toews from Hamilton for prospects Jett Woo, Taro Hirose and Mads Sogaard. 


Georgetown has assumed all of Toews’ 2020-21 salary of $13,800,000. That figure represents the highest single season salary the club has ever taken on. Toews is an unrestricted free agent at the conclusion of the season. 


Toews is expected to center the top line and pair with RW Brett Boeser. Ryan Strome will center LW Jakub Vrana on the 2^nd line, and the remaining wingers will be determined in training camp and there could be rotation depending on matchups and line chemistry. 

Michael Backlund is expected to pair with Rocco Grimaldi on the 3^rd line and Radek Faksa will partner Jason Dickinson on the 4^th line, with the remaining bottom 6 wingers expected to rotate and match-up like the scoring lines. 


The wingers competing for these spots are Dominik Kahun, Nick Ritchie, Warren Foegele and Paul Byron. RFA W Marcus Foligno could also be re-signed and enter the competition. The club has also indicated they would be interested in acquiring an established top 6 winger that can play both sides.


With the Toews acquisition Jesperi Kotkaniemi will move into a reserve role and the club is expected to increase their efforts to trade Cody Eakins, who is in the last year of his contract.

CCHL Awards Handed Out!!!!

Hello sports fans. I am back here in Novosibirsk, where locals have sheltered in place for the coronavirus pandemic. It seems that everyone is watching old videos of President Vladimir Putin playing hockey against retired KHL and NHL Russian players. This may actually be a requirement of all citizens of mother Russia. Thankfully he had put on his shirt while playing hockey.


With the CCHL season over, it’s time to announce the end of season awards. What a season it was as we had the top 2 teams, Fort Erie and local Siberia, fighting it out until the last game to see who would get the top seed. Both ended up with an impressive 126 points, but Fort Erie won the tie breaker. We saw these two titans make it to the finals with minimal losses and we were treated to a heck of a series! 

The Icecats looked like they were going to sweep the Falcons after taking a 3-0 lead in games, but the tough as nails Falcons fought back with back-to-back wins. Siberia ultimately took game 6 and with that win brought home the first ever Kehler Cup to Siberia. Captain McDavid has been drinking vodka from the Kehler Cup ever since!


We had a lot of worthy nominees for the end of season awards. Without further ado, let’s look at the award winners.



Lady Byng - given to the most gentlemanly player

·         Derek Ryan – CGY: 6 PIMs in 82 games

·         Ryan O’Reilly – SPR: 6 PIMs in 82 games… wow, that’s amazing for this tough player

·         Brandon Saad - VIC: 6 PIMs in 82 games… I see a pattern here!

·         William Karlsson - SUD: 0 PIM in 82 games…are you kidding me, not a single penalty???

·         AND THE WINNER IS: William Karlsson won by a landslide, winning 90% of the votes

Selke - given to the best defensive forward

·         Mark Stone - SIB: Led the league in +/- with +40 and tied for 4^th in scoring, the guy can do it all

·         Gabriel Landeskog - ISL: +34 and played defensively responsible hockey for a tough SPR team

·         Joe Pavelski – FOR: great 2-way center who finished with a +31

·         AND THE WINNER IS: Mark Stone, won by 5 votes ahead of a tie for runner up between Gabriel Landeskog and Ryan O’Reilly

Calder - given to the best rookie (min 20 games played in NHL 2017-18 season to qualify)

·         Elias Pettersson - WIS: The Swedish wiz put up 60 points in 82 games for a team that struggled all year

·         Jordan Binnington - GEO: The rookie netminder had 23 wins, 2.92 GAA and a .908 S% for the Millers

·         Anthony Cirelli - LAS: The young 2-way forward managed 48 points in only 53 games for Vegas

·         Erik Cernak - DRT: This young defenseman put up a very respectable 38 points in 73 games and was a +14

·         AND THE WINNER IS: Elias Pettersson, who was 8 votes ahead of runner up, Anthony Cirelli

Norris - given to the best defenseman

·         Brent Burns - SIB: the Siberia rearguard led the league with 98 points in 82 games, +23

·         Jacob Trouba - VIC: this tough, 2-way dman was second in the league with 93 points in 81 games

·         Ryan McDonagh - WIS: the veteran defender was third in the league with 92 points in 82 games

·         AND THE WINNER IS: Brent Burns, who won by 3 votes over runner up Jacob Trouba

Vezina - given to the best goaltender

·         Ben Bishop - SPR: The veteran netminder settled into Springfield and led the league with a .911 S%

·         Pekka Rinne - DAY: the big, Finnish netminder had a strong season and led the league with 45 wins

·         John Gibson - FOR: John was a key member of the Falcons, finishing with the 2^nd lowest GAA 2.67 and led the league with 5 shutouts

·         Matt Murray – SIB: Matt had a very strong finish to the year, ending with the lowest GAA in the league at 2.66 and second in the league in wins

·         AND THE WINNER IS: Matt Murray, by one vote over Pekka Rinne and 2 votes over John Gibson. This was a close battle between 3 great goaltenders!

Jennings - given to the team/goalies with the fewest goals against

·         FOR: finished with a league low 222 goals against

·         SIB: came in second with 232 goals against

·         SUD: rounded out the top 3 with 243 goals against

·         AND THE WINNER IS: Fort Erie (John Gibson and Anton Khudobin) by a landslide!

Now we have the 2 biggest awards, the Hart and Con Smythe trophies. The Hart trophy is given to the player who is the most valuable to his team in the regular season

·         Connor McDavid - SIB: the young captain was great from the start of the season to the end, leading Siberia to the Kehler Cup. Connor led the league with 135 points, 22 greater than the next closest player.

·         Nikita Kucherov – REK: The Russian winger had a great season for first year GM, Maxime. Nikita was second in the league with 113 points.

·         Patrik Kane - HAM: the veteran winger led the Tigers to a first-round bye and into the Canosa Conference finals. He was third in the league with 101 points.

·         Mitch Marner – FOR: The young Falcons winger was tops on his team in scoring, leading the Falcons to the best record in the regular season

·         AND THE WINNER IS: Connor McDavid, who won 81% of the votes!

Finally, we have the Conn Smythe trophy, given to the most valuable player in the playoffs

·         Connor McDavid – SIB: Captain McDavid led his Icecats to the Kehler Cup, scoring 24 points in the playoffs

·         Nathan McKinnon – FOR: Fort Erie’s young star had a great playoff run, scoring 22 points and led his team to the Kehler Cup finals

·         Matt Murray – SIB: Murray was a wall in goal during the playoffs, leading all goalies with a GAA of 2.55 and .918 S%. He was one of the main reasons that the Icecats were able to overcome the high-powered Falcons

·         AND THE WINNER IS: Connor McDavid by 1 vote over Matt “the wall” Murray

Well sports fans, there you have it, the awards for the 2019-2020 CCHL Season. The Cup winning Icecats were well represented in the awards and there were some close races! Many questions loom for next season. Will we see a repeat of this year’s finals, Clash of the Titans 2? Will we see other teams load up to challenge the Cats for the Cup? How will the retirement of the legendary Bill Corfield impact the balance of power in the Corfield conference? Stay tuned and until then, stay cold!

State of the Loons!!!

The Loons season could be summed up in two words : Roller Coaster.

After a successful inaugural season, GM Czepiel went all in during free agency hoping to take the next step and win a playoff series in our second year. Mid way through the season in was apparent that this team was mediocre and had taken a step back. The Loons were hanging around the 4 seed but were a team with a lot of holes and were losing way too much money. Czepiel turned the Loons into sellers.

Aho, Krejci and Ellis were sent packing, and many more were rumored to be moved by the trade deadline. Around that same time it became evident that no one was going to stop either the Falcons or Icecats. It seemed like every other CCHL organization was sending out trade blocks with intentions of rebuilding as well. With Only the top four teams looking to be buyers, the trade market was at a stand still. In a blink of an eye Czepiel turned the Loons into buyers.

Panarin, Carlson, Handsome Phil, Krejci, Chara and Halak were acquired. Thoughts of a making a run and winning a playoff series or two returned, however the only thing that returned was a mediocre team with a high payroll.

The Loons went on a winning streak to end the regular season and held off the now relocated Dartmouth Lakers for 6th and final playoff seed. Unfortunately, playoff injuries exposed the Loons lack of depth and they fell to the Seattle Reign 4 games to 2 in the first round. 

The one positive from this year is the farm system. Through all the back and forth this year, Czepiel was able to add (and re-add) Turcotte, Kaliyev, Boldy and Oettinger to go along with Zegras, Wahlstrom and Afanasyev to give the Loons a solid future.  Let’s hope the fans can remember this as the Loons look to be cellar dwellers next year.

Congratulations to the Siberia Icecats on winning their first title.

Passwords coming to the Simon T client

One thing you’ll notice in the coming weeks is that I will be contacting everyone with a password for next season’s Simon T client.

You will need this password to open your team’s information in order to submit lines.

If you are sitting at home in self-isolations wondering if I’ve lost my mind, rest assured I haven’t yet.  Alright well don’t ask my wife that question as it may yield a different result, but at least I don’t feel that way yet.

The reason for the password this upcoming season is that we will not longer have a need to email in your lineups like you have the past few years.

Simply put you download the file as normal.  You would then adjust your lines and save the file to your hard drive.  At that point in time, it will ask you to FTP the file to the server and you answer that with a ‘yes’.  The file then uploads to the website for you.

What happens from there?  When I sign into the Simon T simulator I can then simply download all the lineups from the server that have been uploaded.  I do not have to manually complete the task as Bill has had to do for the past almost 20 years with APBA and Simon T.

The reason why we are passwording for each team is that with the upload to the server, I cannot tell who has uploaded what profile to the server.  While I believe we have an upstanding group of General Managers, in order to protect the integrity of the lineups submitted, we need to password protect each team.

I’m excited for this change because I believe it’ll make everyone’s life easier when submitting lineups and certainly mine easier for getting them updated in the simulator.

If you have any questions about it, please let me know.  Please note this is not in effect yet but will be once you receive an email from me.

Incoming Commissioner Commissioner's Corner

NEW guy Commissioner Corner

Welcome, everyone to the new guy Commissioner's corner, or shall we say, incoming Commissioners Commissioner’s Corner!

What’s going on around the league you ask?  Well, lots of it that’s for sure.

I’ve been working to migrate the CCHL files over to the new website and giving Bill back his site in relation to the CCHL.

I’ve got to teach Terry how to work through the prospect and draft pick files in the coming week or so as well.  We cannot open trading without it as trying to maintain that and all other league business would be simply overwhelming.

We have completed the three-team dispersal draft and I believe that we have some very even rosters as a result of the drafts.  I’m excited to see how Charlie, Brad, and Amos Maxine further refine their rosters as trading opens and free agency happens.

What else is going on you ask?  Well, Covid-19 continues to make things interesting and I am trying to determine the steps for the league in terms of a new disk.  It appears that there might be a new disk already produced by the team we got this year’s from – but I am awaiting confirmation on that.  It would be nice for that to be there already but it would also delay trading opening up as I’m sure everyone would rather have the new ratings to evaluate trades with.

I know you are reading this likely saying “how are there new ratings Matt?  The NHL season isn’t done yet….”

You’re absolutely right it’s not done yet – or is it?  We don’t know but what we do know from those I’ve talked to in the community is that the disk is basically complete at this point annually anyways with minor adjustments that take place over the last ten games.  With 70-71 games in the books for most teams, it’s plenty of sample size to work off of and if they weren’t rating throughout the year we would not get disks in April anyways.

I’m comfortable with the body of work they have put together in the past for us and I’m excited to import the ratings.

If the disk isn’t ready, I’ll work through converting the three dispersal teams with their new rosters (prospects and picks are already done) and then open trading.

I’ve noticed quite a few trade blocks going out already.  I ask that everyone remain diligent in checking their emails this time of year or notifying the league if you are going to be away so our franchises are not waiting for a reply that isn’t coming.

That’s all I have for you currently.  I hope everyone is safe during this tumultuous time in the world.  Stay in, stay safe and respond to trade offers timely!

-Matt

Falcons face uphill battle in finals...

After having dropped both games on home ice, the Fort Erie Falcons find themselves with an unenviable task of trying to tie the series in Siberia.

Siberia goaltender Matt Murray has been the star of the series thus far, stopping 62 out of the 65 shots faced in the final.  The Falcons have only been able to score with any consistency on the man advantage as their five-on-five offence has disappeared. 

Heading back to the Corfield Conference final, Fort Erie has only won once in their past five games and is playing the worst hockey of their entire season; despite being very much in both games.

Morgan Reilly has certainly been on the hot seat in Fort Erie throughout the playoffs as his -9 rating has really hurt the team, despite the contribution of 10 points in 11 games played.

Some feel like Reilly has been nursing an injury throughout the playoffs and that might be the case as he was forced to miss time in the Conference final and very limited in the opening game of the Kehler Cup final.  If the Falcons are going to turn things around, Reilly will need to be much better defensively in his own zone.

Another player having a quiet final thus far is Alexander Ovechkin who has yet to contribute a point in the series.  Ovechkin had nine points in 11 games coming into the final but has not had the impact on the series thus far that many had hoped.

Fort Erie formed a super line with Ovechkin, Marner and MacKinnon in the opening game to try to counter the McDavid line in Siberia but that failed miserably.  Ovechkin found himself back with familiar line mates Pavelski and DeBrincat in game two.

While the line generated six shots on Murray, the trio were all minus one on the night and were absolutely victimized by the play of the Bergeron line in Siberia.

Things do not look good for Fort Erie to capture their first Kehler Cup at this point.  Having said that, there is still a lot of hockey to be played and Fort Erie’s top offensive talent may still break out at five-on-five in Siberia.  It’s unlikely but you can’t count out any team that has won 60 games in the regular season.

Sudbury Miners: Season in Review 2019-2020

CANADIAN PRESS (Sudbury, ON)

After qualifying for the playoffs for the first time in franchise history last season, the Sudbury Miners came into the 2019-2020 season with some raised expectations and a hunger for more success.

In his season-opening press conference, General Manager Terry James talked about his idea that a lot of his young prospects gained valuable experience and that he expected them to take another step this year and establish themselves as one of the top teams in the CCHL.

But sometimes, things don’t always go to plan. The inconsistent play would plague the team all season, to the point where the Miners would not finally clinch a playoff spot until Game 80. They would end up finishing the season in 6th place in the Canosa Conference, good for 10th overall in the league. The prize for their efforts this season was a re-match of last years’ series versus the Springfield Isotopes. Springfield had finished in 3 rd place in the conference and easily dispatched the Miners in 5 games last year.

This year would be different though. The Miners picked the right time of the year to play some of their best hockey and upset the Isotopes in 6 games. The Miners would eventually fall to the top-seeded Siberia IceCats in 6 games, the last one being in double overtime.

Despite the inconsistency throughout the season and playoff loss, the Miners were able to take some positives from this season. Winning their first playoff series in franchise history and pushing a top team like Siberia can only be viewed as another valuable step for the Miners.

Going into the off-season, the Miners are armed with 17 picks in this year’s Entry Draft, including three (3) first-round selections. The Miners feel that they are well-positioned to fully transition to one of the top teams in the CCHL within the next few years.

On that note, as always with every year-end, here is the Good, the Bad and the Ugly for the 2019-2020 edition of the Sudbury Miners.

THE GOOD
 Playoff Series Win

Simply put, winning their first playoff series in franchise history cannot be seen as anything but good. Getting that victory and avenging last season’s playoff loss to Springfield made this just a lit bit more satisfying.

 Tyler Seguin

The Miners top scorer was simply brilliant this year and was their team MVP most nights. He finished with 102 points (good for 5th overall) and was one of three Miner players (Sebastian Aho and Dylan Larkin being the others) to break the 30 goal barrier. He goes into this off-season as a restricted free agent, but Sudbury is expected to re-sign their top center.

THE BAD
• Lack of Physicality

The Miners finished 19th in the CCHL in Hits, with only an average of 16.7 per game. To put this in perspective, the Niagara Falls Thunder led the league with an average of 20.18 hits per game. That may not seem like a big difference but too many times this season, the Miners could not respond if physically challenged and this lack of engagement, especially in their own end, would often lead to a scoring chance for the opposition.

THE UGLY

• Inconsistent Play

This was a problem for the Miners all season long. They would lose 4 games in a row, then reel off 5 wins, or be below .500 for a 10 game stretch but then lights out for the next 10. It was hard to know what Miners team you were going to get on a nightly basis. Because of this, the playoffs were in jeopardy until the final few games……too close for comfort for Miners management.

All in all, it could be classified as a roller-coaster year in Sudbury but ended on a pretty decent note with their playoff success. Management will be careful not to set expectations too high for next year, given how most of this year transpired. Having said that, the Miners should be well-positioned to try and continue their climb up to the upper echelon of CCHL teams.

Next year has the potential to be a big year for the Miners, but only if that potential turns into
results.