With all the excitement surrounding the announcement that Winnipeg’s former team, the Manitoba Moose would be heading to St. John’s, Newfoundland next season, it is important to remember that some of the players won’t be making the trip to Atlantic Canada.
A number of the guys who helped Manitoba to a 93 point, 5th place finish last season are property of the Vancouver Canucks and will be heading to their as yet, undetermined AHL franchise. In fact there are approximately 16 players on the current Moose roster of 28, whose rights are owned by the Canucks. Familiar names like Bolduc, Lack and Tanev won’t be with us anymore.
More about our new AHL team after the jump.
The Thrashers have had an affiliation with the Chicago Wolves and 14 Thrashers prospects were playing in Chi-town. The knock on the Wolves has been that they focus on some of their own player development and weren’t always so considerate of how the Thrashers players progressed. There was even talk that the Wolves and Thrashers would dissolve their relationship at the end of the season.
Having said that players like Klingberg, Cormier, Machacek, Telegin, Postma, O’dell, and Kulda all have good shots at becoming NHL regulars. (With Kyle’s return, he will be giving you a good look at our prospects, with Prospect Pulse).
Current Assistant GM Craig Heisinger will continue to play an important role and you can expect the guy responsible for helping to develop coaches like Vigneault, Arniel and Noel will have our new AHL affiliate running like a well oiled machine.
As we learn more about our new affiliate in St. John’s stick to our AHL Report for the latest development news.
