Was kind of hoping to avoid a blog post until tomorrow, when the AHL should announce its MVP and wrap up the 2019-20 awards season. Ah well: The Big Club got busy, took care of a bunch of draft-pick business and signed Blade Jenkins, Cole Coskey and Felix Bibeau to their ELCs. They’ve all had success in junior hockey, and Coskey and Bibeau are already 21. (Well, Coskey will be on Monday, but who’s counting?)
Edit: Was going to clean this up with the next post, but who knows when that’ll actually happen, so: CapFriendly noted that Coskey and Bibeau were in fact AHL contracts, not NHL. Jenkins is an NHL deal, beating his signing deadline.
Welcome @coskey_cole @JenkinsBlade #Isles
— Bode Wilde (@bodewilde15) May 28, 2020
All eligible for the Sound Tigers’ roster for their next game, whenever that is. The Islanders will play Florida in the NHL playoffs, whenever that is. (If I seem pessimistic, I just am, sorry.)
AHL Awards: The Fred T. Hunt Award, the AHL’s Masterton, went to San Jose’s John McCarthy, and coach of the year went to Milwaukee’s Karl Taylor. Not our votes, but no problems whatsoever with the choices. Charlotte’s Jake Bean won the Eddie Shore as defenseman of the year, and Belleville’s Josh Norris was rookie of the year. Picked one of those two, and no problem with the other. And Kaapo Kahkonen was the league’s top goaltender, as was foretold with the all-star teams last week, and we talked about that one then, so.
Last time the first-team all-star goalie didn’t win the Bastien: 1993-94, Frederic Chabot of Hershey after Byron Dafoe was the first-team all-star. It happened three other times in the first eight years the Bastien Award was given, beginning in 1984. (I mean, we’re all voting for both, or at least now we are. You’d think it’d better be identical, right? Will have to poke around sometime on what the deal was back then.)
Elsewhere, Milford’s Mark Naclerio will coach the 15Us at South Kent’s Selects Academy.
LIU went to a top hockey family for its first men’s hockey coach as it looks to go Division I sooner than later.
And RIP, Larry Kramer, Biff Pocoroba, Richard Herd, Jerry Sloan, Eddie Sutton, Ann K. Mitchell and Sam Johnson.