Hello all. It’s been a bit since we talked AHL hockey and there’s no real reason for the delay other than the recaps would be Falcons only and would be kinda short. So, without further ado, let’s get going with the final four regular season games of the Falcons/CBJ Affiliation.
The Falcons opened this stretch of road games with a stop in Hartford and laid an absolute clunker falling by a score of 5-0. Scott Munroe took the loss despite barely making it halfway through the first period. He stopped only eight of 11 shots before giving way to Joonas Korpisalo who stopped 21 of 23 in his final action of the season.
Next up was a trip to Syracuse for Superhero night so, of course, the Crunch started the kid with Iron Man on his mask, Adam Wilcox. In Wilcox’s first game the Falcons allowed a first period goal before scoring three straight including two by TJ Tynan for his first pro multi-goal game. Josh Anderson scored the other with Sonny Milano picking up his first multi-point game with an assist on a Tynan goal and on the Anderson goal. Scott Munroe had 28 saves in the win.
Next up for the Falcons was a trip into…THE FUTURE!!!! The team loaded up the plane and were off to St John’s Newfoundland (its an hour and a half ahead of Columbus and the eastern time zone). Quickly, on Friday, hours before the game, what had been rumored for a while became fact when it was announced that the CBJ will become the NHL affiliate of the Lake Erie Monsters. You can read my thoughts here.
On to the game action on Friday. The Falcons gave up the first goal in the second but 46 seconds later, Brian Gibbons found Michael Chaput in front to make it 1-1. A minute later the Caps scored and then added another early in the third period to make it 3-1 before the Austrian Bulldog would strike. 1:40 after the Caps goal, Marko Dano got the rebound of a Sean Collins shot and put the puck in the net to make it 3-2. The play was started by a Dillon Heatherington shot who earned his first pro point as a result. The tying goal came from local boy Luke Adam who scored off a pass from Sonny Milano. The game went to a shootout with Tynan and Dano missing and Munroe didn’t stop either IceCaps shooter. In the loss, Munroe stopped 22 of 25.
In the rematch, Trent Vogelhuber opened the scoring when Julien Melchiori tried to clear the puck and it bounced perfectly off Vogelhuber’s stick to go over the IceCaps goalie and make it 1-0. After that the Caps scored three straight before Mike Hoeffel potted one early in the third when he’d pick up a rebound of a Hubert Labrie shot that Peter Budaj stopped. Late in the third on a bit of a scrambly sequence (looked like the puck may have gone offside but wasn’t called), Tynan got the puck and found Labrie who scored his first goal of the season to tie it. In the overtime period, Tynan came out of the corner and tried to shoot but he whiffed on it and the puck went to Sean Collins who had a wide open net to shoot into. Scott Munroe made 17 saves for his 11th win of the season.
With regular season play concluded, for the Falcons to make it into the post season they had to look to the team’s players next year as the new Coyotes AHL affiliate (Springfield) needed the current one (Portland) to lose in its season finale to earn the baby birds a spot. But a goal with 43 seconds put the Pirates into the playoffs and the Falcons onto the golf course.
As for the five year affiliation of the Jackets and Falcons, the Birds went 201-147-21-18 with 147 players playing at least a game with the team. Cody Goloubef was the only player to play at least a game in each of the five seasons and Ryan Craig was the leading scorer during the affiliation. TJ Tynan led the Falcons in scoring and he also finished fifth among AHL rookies for goals and fourth among rookie assists. Sean Collins and Ryan Craig tied for the team goal scoring lead with 17. Despite not playing a game since early March, Anton Forsberg was still one of the best goalies in the AHL and had it not been for Matt Murray he probably had been at least on the All Rookie Team.
As for next year, it’s off to Cleveland for our first year with the Monsters where it could be another young team with Nick Moutrey and Oliver Bjorkstrand possibly making their pro debuts as well as a full year of Sonny Milano. I want to thank all the Falcons fans for following me and I wish you and the Falcons team good luck.
Quickly we have a #ReillyWatch update. At the Frozen Four in Boston, Mike Reilly was named an All American for the second straight season becoming the seventh Gopher all time to be named an All-American multiple times. It also came out that – to the shock of no one – Mike will forgo his senior season to go pro but, because I have to say this, we just don’t know who with. It was also announced that Mike will be part of Team USA competing at the World Championships. Hopefully the head coach of Team USA, Todd Richards can give a bit of a sell job. We could be coming to an end of ReillyWatch though. It sounds like Mike will make his decision after both classes end in early May and the World Championships end. It sounds like Mike is actually warming to the Blue Jackets but my hopes aren’t real high.
There you have it folks! We’re getting down to the end of the line of the hockey season as were down to only three prospects in the CHL playoffs along with a few young guys playing in the World Championships. We’ll have more for you on those players as they progress through the rounds of play.
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