St. John’s IceCaps start season with completely overhauled roster, hoping to finally find success

The second and final season of Montreal’s affiliation with the St. John’s IceCaps is about to get underway with a pretty significant overhaul to the team.

Gone from last season’s opening-night team roster are Gabriel Dumont, Bud Holloway, Morgan Ellis, Darren Dietz, Christian Thomas, Mac Bennett, Angelo Miceli, Tim Bozon, Brandon McNally, Michaël Bournival, Stefan Fournier, Travis Brown, Eric Neilson, Eddie Pasquale, and Dustin Tokarski. In addition, Sven Andrighetto and Daniel Carr have graduated to the Montreal Canadiens in the NHL.

That’s a rather significant loss of assets that had to be addressed by General Manager Marc Bergevin in the off-season. Surprisingly, only three players on the new-look team will qualify as rookies: Daniel Audette, Charlie Lindgren, and Tom Parisi. Every other addition to the team already has significant professional experience, which will hopefully yield significantly better results for a team that has not made the playoffs in five seasons.

Defence

The return of Marc Barberio to the AHL unquestionably helped bolster the inexperienced defensive core of the IceCaps, who would have had to rely heavily on Philip Samuelsson, Joel Hanley, and Jonathan Racine as the only defencemen who had more than 80 games of professional experience. However, experience and depth do not have a direct correlation, as Jeremie Blain, the third-most-experienced defenceman under an AHL deal, will be assigned to the ECHL.

Out of the younger defencemen, look for Brett Lernout to have a breakout season, as the Canadiens will be looking to the six-foot-four rearguard as the next big bruiser to graduate from the AHL.

Forwards

The IceCaps risk struggling offensively again this season with the losses of Holloway, Carr, and Andrighetto. Newcomer Chris Terry will be expected to make up the lion’s share of the lost offence, with additional support coming from sophomore players Michael McCarron and Nikita Scherbak who will have to improve their numbers this season. The IceCaps were in the bottom third of the league for goals scored last year, so these players will certainly need to work hard to help the team improve.

Charles Hudon is kind of in a developmental purgatory, having accomplished all he can in the AHL, but unable to break through to the NHL. He too will add points for the IceCaps while the team figures out what to do with him.

If the forwards risk having a tough time scoring, they certainly won’t struggle with physicality, having a roster full of hard-nosed players like Jeremy Grégoire, Connor Crisp, David Broll, and Bobby Farnham.

Filling out the team is a group of players who are probably facing their final season in the organization if they don’t show encouraging signs of progress, notably Jacob de la Rose, Mark MacMillan, Stefan Matteau, and Max Friberg.

Goaltenders

Youngsters Zachary Fucale and Charlie Lindgren (temporarily up in Montreal while Carey Price is out with the flu, replaced by Brampton Beast goaltender Bryan Pitton) will be given the reins in net for the IceCaps, which is in stark contrast to the last several seasons which saw a veteran goaltender alongside a prospect. That was potentially the plan, however with Mike Condon getting claimed off waivers by the Pittsburgh Penguins, the team had to move to Plan B, which is to go with two unproven talents.

Both Fucale and Lindgren are in the final years of their entry-level contracts, and whomever comes out of the season looking better than the other will surely get the backup role on the Canadiens next season. The Habs may decide to dip into the free agent pool to sign a veteran free agent to bolster the goaltending depth chart.

Tryout Round-up

Eight players attended the Montreal Canadiens training camp on professional tryouts (PTO), of which six of them made their way to Newfoundland to continue their time with the IceCaps. On Tuesday, three of them were rewarded with a single-season AHL Standard Player’s Contract (SPC).

Broll is a former Toronto Maple Leafs sixth-round draft pick averaging around 100 penalty minutes in his four professional seasons. He played a physical game during the pre-season for the IceCaps, and will help surround the young prospects with a veteran presence, similar to the role that Eric Neilson filled last season for the team. Broll signed an ECHL contract with the Brampton Beast recently, so this new contract should be considered an upgrade to a two-way AHL/ECHL deal.

Yannick Veilleux is a former St. Louis Blues fourth-round pick in 2011, and part of the Memorial Cup-champion Shawinigan Cataractes in 2012. This will be his fourth professional season, playing mostly in the AHL, with a season spent in the ECHL, as well. Although he produces offensively, he still has an elevated penalty total.

The biggest surprise was Mathieu Corderre-Gagnon getting a contract, as he didn’t really do too much during the pre-season to stand out from the pack. Undrafted despite winning the Memorial Cup in 2012 along with Veilleux, he has mainly spent time in the ECHL for the past three seasons, racking up penalty minutes at an alarming pace. Spanning stints with three teams in the 2012-13 season, Corderre-Gagnon amassed 354 penalty minutes. Last season he was second in the ECHL in fighting majors.

The last three tryouts were released, including Phil DeSimone, Stefano Momesso, and Justin Baker. The latter returns to Brampton with an ECHL contract in his pocket.

ECHL Reinforcements

Following the signings, Veilleux and Corderre-Gagnon were reassigned to the Brampton Beast, along with Jeremie Blain and Dalton Thrower. These four players will surely find their way on to the IceCaps roster during the course of the season as injuries and NHL call-ups start affecting the IceCaps.

2016-17 IceCaps Starting Roster

With these moves, the IceCaps are down to 24 players to start the season. Here is the projected lineup to start: