It’s a grand tradition: A hockey team has success, and other teams copy what made it unique. This year’s version, evidently, is inspired by Rockford. Jeremy Colliton’s successful? Hey, Laval says, let’s hire another former Sound Tiger.
OK, Joel Bouchard has a pretty solid resume aside from his 19 games for the Sound Tigers over two seasons, mid-last decade. But it’s a second former Sound Tiger named an AHL head coach in two years, which is kind of cool after 17 years.
Aaron Ness re-upped with the Capitals for another year.
At last, the conference finals begin Friday out west. Things get going in Toronto on Saturday afternoon.
At Worlds, Cam Atkinson scored to give the U.S. a two-goal lead, which the Czech Republic then erased. But Patrick Kane in the third gave the Americans a 3-2 win and a semifinals date Saturday with unbeaten Sweden (and Anders Nilsson), which survived Latvia (and not Kristers Gudlevskis) by the same score. The other semi will pit Canada, which beat Russia in overtime in the annual epic on a Ryan O’Reilly goal, and Switzerland, which upset Finland (Nino Niederreiter had an assist).
The medal games follow on Sunday.
And finally… Yikes.
| TEAM | Old | New |
| LAV | Sylvain Lefebvre (4/17) | Joel Bouchard (5/17) |
| HER | Troy Mann (4/25) | — |
| BAK | Gerry Fleming (4/27) | Jay Woodcroft (4/27) |
| BEL | Kurt Kleinendorst (5/1) | — |
(Colorado, moving affiliations from San Antonio to Colorado, did not retain Eric Veilleux. Traditionally we don’t put that on the chart until San Antonio names someone else.)
World Championship: Locals by the numbers:
| Player, Team (Hometown) | GP | G | A | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cam Atkinson, USA (Greenwich) | 8 | 7 | 4 | 11 |
| Nino Niederreiter, SUI | 8 | 3 | 5 | 8 |
| Frans Nielsen, DEN | 7 | 3 | 3 | 6 |
| Josh Bailey, CAN | 7 | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| Anders Lee, USA | 8 | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| Anthony Beauvillier, CAN | 7 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| Tage Thompson, USA | 8 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Nick Bonino, USA (Farmington) | 3 | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| Anders Nilsson, SWE | 5 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Ryan Pulock, CAN | 7 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Kristers Gudlevskis, LAT | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Tomas Marcinko, SVK | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Ville Pokka, FIN | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Ilya Sorokin, RUS | 0 | — | — | — |
| Goalies: Team (hometown) | GP | W-L | MP | GA | Svs | GAA | SP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anders Nilsson, SWE | 5 | 5-0 | 300:00 | 6 | 100 | 1.20 | .943 |
| Kristers Gudlevskis, LAT | 2 | 0-2 | 120:46 | 10 | 52 | 4.97 | .839 |
| Ilya Sorokin, RUS | 0 | — | — | — | — | — | — |