North Division Notes - Bonus Edition!
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It’s a bonus, playoff edition of the North Division Notebook!
The latest from around the division as the Calder Cup Playoffs got underway on Friday
-The first offseason coaching casualty came from Laval, as the Canadiens fired head coach Sylvain Lefebvre after a six-year run through three different cities. He started out during the 2012-13 season in Hamilton, then moved with the team to St. John’s for two seasons and Laval this year. The Rocket finished with the AHL’s worst record in 2017-18, going 24-42-7-3, including a 12-game winless streak to end the season. Lefebvre finished his Montreal affiliate coaching career with a 188-210-37-21 record, and just one postseason appearance in the 2016-17 season, when the IceCaps lost their first-round matchup to Syracuse in four games.
-With Binghamton’s season over, New Jersey has called up the following players as Black Aces: forwards Christoph Bertschy, Michael McLeod, Blake Pietila, Nick Lappin, and Kevin Rooney, and defensemen Brian Strait and Michael Kapla. Defenseman Colton White will join Mackenzie Blackwood in Adirondack as the Thunder are in the midst of their first round Kelly Cup playoff series.
-After joining Belleville as an amateur tryout out of Acadia University in late March, forward Boston Leier signed a one-year AHL pact with the Senators for next season. He picked up six points (4 G, 2 A) in 8 games.
When the dust settled after the final day of the regular season, several North players finished at the top in several categories:
-Chris Terry (Laval) won the John B. Sollenberger Trophy as the AHL’s scoring leader, with 71 points (32 goals, 39 assists) in 62 games, beating league MVP Phil Varone of Lehigh Valley by one point.
-Garret Sparks and Calvin Pickard (Toronto) won the Harry “Hap” Holmes Memorial Award as the goaltenders with the lowest team goals against average for the season. Sparks, who was named the Baz Bastien award winner earlier, finished first in the AHL with a 1.79 goals against average, while Pickard ranked seventh with 2.31. Sparks also tied with Charlotte’s Alex Nedeljkovic and Milwaukee’s Anders Lindback for the league lead in wins with 31, finished first in save percentage with .936, and ranked second in shutouts with 6.
-Alex Gallant (Syracuse) finished first in penalty minutes with 194 PIM in just 38 appearances.
-Matt Taormina (Laval) was first in power play assists with 32, and power play points with 36.
-Syracuse saw three players finish in the top 20 in rookie scoring: team leading scorer Mathieu Joseph finished tied with Tucson’s Dylan Strome for fourth with 53 points; Alexander Volkov was 8th with 45 points; and Mitchell Stephens 11th with 41 points. Fellow rookie Erik Cernak lead all first year AHL players with a +30 rating.
-Binghamton’s Jacob MacDonald lead all AHL defensemen in scoring (55 points), goals (20), and power play goals (11).
As for team leaders:
-Belleville and Syracuse, who had several penalty filled matchups during the season, finished 1-2 in average penalty minutes per game. The Senators averaged 16.43 minutes, the Crunch 16.12. Utica finished fourth at 15.32 minutes.
-Rochester made the most appearances beyond regulation, going to overtime 29 times and winning 12 of those games.
-On special teams, Belleville finished last in overall power play with 13.4 percent. On the penalty kill, the top three in the league were: Toronto at 88.9%; Utica at 85.5%; and Syracuse at 84.8%.
-While Toronto was tops in goals against per game (2.24), Belleville and Laval were at the bottom: the Senators allowed 3.50/game, the Rocket 3.70/game.
Finally, some fun facts:
-Rochester was the only AHL team to hit double digit goals in one game, and they did it twice: in a 10-3 win over Binghamton on November 24th, and in a 12-3 win over Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on February 16th.
-The most combined penalty minutes in one game? That honor goes to Belleville and Binghamton, who combined for 148 in a 4-3 Senator shootout win in Belleville on December 13th. Viktor Loov, who was later traded to the Minnesota organization, lead all skaters with 22 minutes, followed by teammate Yaroslav Dyblenko with 20.
-Most team shots in any period? Rochester put up 29 against Laval goaltender Charlie Lindgren, rallying from a 3-0 deficit in the third to defeat the Rocket 4-3 in overtime on October 27th.
-Syracuse was a rather streaky team, with separate winning streaks of 10, 9, 6, and 7.
-Thanks to a rash of injuries, Utica would see 58 different players suit up for at least one game. Syracuse had 49, including seven different goaltenders.
-In what is most likely a coincidence, the Senators—and the team that replaced them in the Southern Tier, the Devils—both finished with 63 points.
