All about Vancouver

Kind of a busy day on all fronts in the Canucks organization. Starting most locally: The NHL.com lists have Brandon DeFazio to Vancouver.

With its board meeting over, the AHL announced division alignments. The Eastern Conference is unchanged. Utica goes to the North Division, and Houston’s departure turns the former South Division into a new West that includes Abbotsford and Charlotte, two of the three greatest geographical outposts.

(If I was realigning radically for this year, I’d go St. John’s to the North, Springfield to the Atlantic, Bridgeport and Hartford to the East, and a revived Empire Division (minus Rochester) of Utica, Bingo, Syracuse, Adirondack and Albany. But that makes no sense, it ignores the Western Conference, and I just want more trips to Pennsylvania.)

Team Business Services awards included a community-service honor for Bridgeport, named the top team in the Eastern Conference.

Meanwhile Travis Green will coach Utica. And that’s what I was forgetting last night: Long rumored and reported, appears John Anderson returns officially to the Wolves on Tuesday.

TEAM Old New
HER Mark French (5/17)  Mike Haviland (6/18) 
TOR Dallas Eakins (EDM head, 6/10) Steve Spott (7/3)
IOW John Torchetti (CSKA, 6/24)
SA Chuck Weber (Dir. hockey ops, 6/25)  Peter Horachek (6/25)
CHI-a  Scott Arniel (NYR ass’t, 7/2) John Anderson (expected 7/16) 
UTI-a  Dave Allison-p Travis Green (7/11)

a-affiliation change, not that that necessarily makes a difference. p-Allison was coach in Peoria.

Edit: Looks like Rochester sticks with Chadd Cassidy.

And Ilya Kovalchuk does the Kontinental walk after being regulated, capped, arbitrarily convicted of circumvention, escrowed and capped again.

Michael Fornabaio