Last week, was a tough week for hockey. While we morn the passing of former Colorado College Tiger forward Scott Winkler. Last week, we also got word that Edmonton Oilers prospect Kristians Pelss had drowned in Latvia.
Joanne Ireland, Edmonton Journal - For days Josh Green held out hope that Kristians Pelss had not drowned, that it was just a horrible coincidence that he was missing and that someone else had jumped into the Daugava River in Riga, Latvia.
Sadly, the search came to a tragic end on Saturday when Pelss, a 20-year-old Edmonton Oilers prospect, was confirmed dead.
“When I heard the initial reports, I was absolutely floored. You just feel sick to your stomach but you keep hoping for a miracle. It’s so sad,” said Green, the captain of the Oklahoma City Barons.
“We spent most of the year with him. He didn’t play in the playoffs but he was with us every day. Just a real good kid, a real hard worker, and he had this dry wit when it came to his humor, which is what I liked about him.”
Travis Ewanyk spent two seasons with Pelss in the Oil Kings fold, a memorable stretch that included the team’s Memorial Cup run in 2012. Ewanyk then closed out this season with Pelss in Oklahoma City. He had many conversations with Oil King teammates and coaches over the course of the past few trying days.
The Toronto Marlies got some bad news today when they learned that former Fighting Sioux forward Matt Frattin has suffered a knee injury and will need surgery. That's a big loss for the Marlies because Frattin is tied for the lead in scoring for the Toronto Marlies with (10g-3a-13 pts). Frattin is a restricted free agent and will need to be signed in the off-season.
Lance Hornby,Toronto Sun --- Winger Matt Frattin, who was a force physically and on the
scoresheet, will be lost for the rest of the American Hockey League playoffs with a knee injury that will require surgery.
Frattin, who has a league post-season best 10 goals and shares the team lead with 13 points, was hurt in Game 5 of the Western Final in a bold play to score an empty netter to eliminate the Oklahoma City
Barons. Frattin crashed into the net in a race for the puck.
Beast Mode - as he has been all series long against OKC Barons - Frattin was again a monster in game six against the Oklahoma City Barons. Frattin scored his ninth and 10 goals of the AHL Calder Cup playoffs. Frattin's is tied for the team lead in points with Jerry D'Amigo and Philippe Dupuis - ten goals leads the Calder Cup Playoffs as well.
The Toronto Marlies now face off against the Norfolk Admirals, who like the Marlies have quite a few ex-college hockey players on their team. Some of the college flavor of the Norfolk Admirals includes: Cory Conacher (Canisus College), Evan Oberg (Minnesota-Duluth), Mike Kostka (UMass-Amherst), Jonathon Kalinski (Minnesota State University-Mankato), Trevor Smith (University of New Hampshire), Alex Killorn (Harvard), Richard Petiot (Colorado College), Jeff Dimmen (University of Maine).
Frattin's second goal of the game was the game winning goal for the Marlies and I would classify that goal as a thing of beauty - your classic toe drag goal that was shot from the top of the face-off circles that blew by the Barons goalie Yann Danis.
Former Fighting Sioux forward Chris VandeVelde has a goal in the losing effort for the Oklahoma City Barons, VandeVelde now has five goals during the Calder Cup playoffs.
The OKC Barons and the Toronto Marlies is a series of interest for college hockey fans as well as Fighting Sioux Hockey fans. Last night, former Fighting Sioux forward Chris VandeVelde scored the fourth goal of the game for the Oklahoma City Barons as they evened their series in the Western Conference Finals against the Toronto Marlies with a 5-1 victory. The next three games of this series are in Toronto.
This series features three ex-Fighting Sioux hockey players (TOR) Matt Frattin (OKC) Taylor Chorney and Chris VandeVelde. There will be a least one former Fighting Sioux hockey players in the Calder Cup Finals and there is a "slight" possibility that three former Fighting Sioux players could face off against each other - if Jason Gregoire and Jake Marto's team the St. John's Ice Caps make the Calder Cup Finals, the are currently down 1-0 against the Milwaukee Admirals - Gregoire and Marto have yet to play for the Ice Caps in the Calder Cup Playoffs and both players have been a healthy scratch according to Chad from A Tradition of Excellence.
Just a few points of interest - only 2621 fans attended last night's game, that seems kind of low for a playoff hockey game in any league. After looking at this attendance figures I went back and looked at the OKC Barons attendance figures for the season and they averaged 3684 fans per game, there are 19 Division I college hockey teams that have have better attendance than the OKC Barons.
For the season, the Toronto Marlies draw better than the Oklahoma City Barons as they averaged 5,480 fans per game. There are 10 Division I hockey teams that draw better than the Marlies.
I am sure this goal by Frattin looks familiar to Fighting Sioux hockey fans who watched the power forward score a bunch of goals that looked a lot like this one. Notice the goalie also didn't see the puck until it was past him and in the net.
College Hockey well represented
The more I looked around the Leafs official web sight, the more I realized college hockey's contribution to this game and the Toronto Marlies. If you look at the box score from this game you will see that college hockey was well represented - three former WCHA players scored three of the five goals for the Marlies in tonight's game, Jake Gardiner (UW), Matt Frattin (UND) and Joe Colborne (DU).
Also, former RPI forward Jerry D'Amigo leads the Marlies in points for the Calder Cup playoffs.
The starting goalie for the Marlies is former Cornell Star Ben Scrivens who has started every games for the Marlies during the playoffs and was up for a while with the Maple Leafs during the regular season.
