#brendansmith

Astro Stack - oil on panel - 10x10″ -2018

Leaf Drop - oil on panel - 10x10″ - 2018

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings HARTFORD, CT - In an expected move, the New York Rangers have placed defenseman Sean Day on unconditional waivers Saturday with the purpose of terminating the last year of his entry-level contract ($725K-NHL/$70K-AHL). The 22-year-old defender was selected 81st overall in the third round of the 2016 NHL draft, which was the Rangers’ first pick that year. His brief Wolf Pack career totals were just 62 games with four goals and 18 total points with 21 PIM and glaring minus-24. In Maine, with the Rangers' ECHL Affiliates, The Mariners, in 55 contests, Day had nine goals and 35 points with 33 PIM and was a plus-16. While playing in Maine, for about two months, Day was on the top defensive pairing with Brandon Crawley before Crawley’s recall. Day is famous for having been granted exceptional status in the OHL back in 2013 to play at age 15. At the time, he was only the fourth player ever to receive that status. Three other players have been granted that status since. This year’s OHL Rookie-Of-The-Year, Shane Wright (Kingston Frontenacs), and Connor Bedard, who will start his first major junior season in the fall with the Regina Pats, are two of them. Bedard, the number one overall in pick in April’s WHL Bantam Draft, is the first WHL player to be granted that status. Others who've been given that status include, John Tavares (2005), Aaron Eklad (2011), Connor McDavid (2012), and Joe Veleno (2015), who was the first QMJHL player to be given the early status. Day simply never developed into the player the Rangers expected and with 19 signed organizational depth at defense, the move clears a roster spot for the organization to use whenever the AHL season starts again. Day’s highwater mark in Hartford was toward the end of the 2018-2019 season. The Wolf Pack had already been virtually eliminated from playoff contention tallying just 13 points in 23 games, and Day ran the powerplay after John Gilmour was recalled to the Rangers. He struggled mightily to build off that moderate success this season, and despite his size and excellent skating skills, it was his decision-making away from the puck that left him vulnerable defensively too many times. Day registered just three points through 16 games. He suffered through his share of defensive lapses and turnovers led to his demotion in December demotion to Maine in favor of Yegor Rykov, who was coming off an early training camp injury in Traverse City, MI at the Prospects Tourney. Rykov's (pronounced Ree-kov) star waned considerably at the end of the season as well. He was a healthy scratch in nine of the last ten games prior to the season being suspended and ultimately canceled. Rykov has one year left on his entry-level deal. He could be on the move as well when all is said and done. The Rangers have six defensemen with Jacob Trouba, Marc Staal, Brendan Smith, Tony D’Angelo, Adam Fox, and Ryan Lindgren. ON the blueline, the Wolf Pack has eleven including Vincent LoVerde, and Mason Geersten, who are both under contract on AHL deals for this upcoming season. Libor Hajek and upcoming RFA, Darren Raddysh, are among them. Group 6 free-agent, Nick Ebert is already exploring European options in Sweden in the Swedish Hockey League and Russia with the KHL. Nils Lundqkvist is another defenseman expected to come over from Sweden (Lulea HF) after having a solid SHL season and WJC tournament, but with COVID-19 issues he may have to spend another year in Sweden. Defenseman Matt Robertson (Edmonton Oil Kings-WHL), and Tarmo Reunanen (Lukko Rauma Finland-FEL), have played off the first year of their three-year entry-level deals and should be in camp along with K’Andre Miller, who signed his ELC several days before the suspension of the season. Swedish goalie prospect, and a second-round pick in 2018, and not under currently under contract, Olof Lindbom is also weighing offers from Swedish and Finnish teams for next season. The Wolf Pack has two other Group 6 free agents in Vinni Lettieri and Danny O’Regan. They also have two UFA’s in team captain and forward, Steven Fogarty, and Matt Beleskey, both of whom have their contracts expire in June. It's a possibility that O’Regan would be the only one in that quartet back next season. The Rangers have three UFA’s, Jesper Fast, Greg McKegg, and former Wolf Pack/CT Whale, and Sound Tiger, Micheal Haley. Fast would be the obvious choice to be signed by the Rangers. Read the full article

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings HARTFORD, CT - The Hartford Wolf Pack was the first to fire their head coach at the conclusion of the 2018-19 regular season are still looking making them the last to hire a head coach for the upcoming 2019-20 regular season. As of 5 pm Friday, the New York Rangers' AHL affiliates do not have ANY coaching staff while the remaining 31 AHL teams are just filling in some of the few open staff positions and hockey operations. The 15-week search has come up empty thus far in christening a seventh head coach for the team in its 23-year history. The latest team to fill a spot this week was the Iowa Wild when they hired Alex Tanguay, a former teammate of Hartford GM Chris Drury. He was named as an assistant coach by the Wild. The San Antonio Rampage has yet to replace ex-Pack coach, J.J. Daigneault, who left for Halifax (QMJHL) to be a head coach. In fact, including San Antonio, only three teams, excluding the Wolf Pack, have not completely filled out their coaching staffs for the upcoming season. Most teams have five coaches, a head coach, two assistants, a goalie coach, and a video coach. A few have just four, but the aggregate number is five. Two actually have six coaches. In the past, at the AHL level, there would be just one head coach. The Springfield Thunderbirds and San Antonio have yet to add a second assistant coach. The AHL Champion Charlotte Checkers have hired a new head coach in Ryan Warsofsky, but have two assistant spots open. That's all that remains in the AHL at this point. Through a variety of sources, eight candidates have been interviewed for the Wolf Pack job. One of the few names confirmed was Mike Vellucci, the Calder Cup-winning coach in Charlotte, and The Louis A. Pieri, AHL Coach of the Year. He took the job in Wilkes Barre/Scranton with the Penguins. The man he replaced there was another BU alumni, Clark Donatelli. Ex-Hartford Whaler, Kevin Dineen, took the job in the San Diego Gulls and the aforementioned Tanguay were interviewed, but nobody has taken the top job or an assistant coach to date. Also confirmed is that two of the eight were offered the top job, but turned it down. The Rangers did hire Jarmo Ruutu, the youngest of the three former hockey-playing Ruutu brothers, to be their European scout. He will work and keep in continual contact with Rangers European draft picks and prospects. As a player, he skated in 735 NHL games tallying 368 points with Chicago, Carolina, and New Jersey. Brother Jarkko played 652 NHL games with Vancouver, Pittsburgh, Ottawa and Anaheim and is currently a Development coach with Columbus/Cleveland.  Mikko played one season of college hockey at Clarkson (ECACHL), but played mostly in the Finnish Elite League and now is the Director of European scouting for the Ottawa Senators. Tanner Glass was hired last month and will be operating out of Seattle, WA in the same capacity. The organizational contract situation, however, is in crisis at this point. In a surprise signing, the Rangers inked RFA Vinni Lettieri to a one-year, two-way deal while in a salary-cap crunch. The deal is slightly puzzling in that he gets a $30K raise on the AHL side to $100K, but the NHL money drops from $925K to $700K. Where is the upside for Lettieri? Unless something radically changes, he’s not going to get many minutes in of ice time in New York. Friday night, prior to Monday’s arbitration hearing, the Rangers announced a two-year, $3.25M per year deal with Pavel Buchnevitch leaving Brendan Lemieux and Tony D’Angelo as the only unsigned RFA’s left for the Rangers. It's interesting that the Rangers signed Lettieri with Lemieux still? The Rangers are the most of any team over the salary cap. They're exceeding it by $4,156,466 and are only permitted to be 10% above the cap during the off-season. This will require some serious player trades or buyouts by the required cap day - the day before the regular season begins, October 3rd to be in full compliance under the present CBA agreement. The team has 23 NHL contracts, which is the required roster limit at the NHL level. They now have 44 total organizational contracts, six under the maximum permitted of 50. The signing of Lettieri gives the Rangers an equal amount of forwards (14) and defensemen (8) between the NHL and AHL as well as five goalies. In terms of AHL-only contracts, they've signed free agents, Jeff LoVerde, Thomas McCollum, and Harry Zolnierczyk, but they do not count in the overall organizational contract number. Matt Beleskey enters the last year of his four-year deal that was signed as a member of the Boston Bruins. Brendan Smith, Kevin Shattenkirk, and Marc Staal are all potential Hartford salary dumps or buyouts that would help in alleviating their cap dilemma. Toronto, Washington, Pittsburgh, Vegas, are all over the cap and everybody’s favorite, Arizona, is just below the threshold with a cap space of just $178,099. Those five teams seem like the most logical potential trading partners. The Maple Leafs are in a worse position than the Rangers. They have yet to sign young superstar, Mitch Marner, who is looking for a deal worth in excess of $10 million. One correction from last week’s Off-Season Volume 12 edition, new signee Philippe Di Guiseppe’s contract is a one year, but a two-way deal $125K-AHL/$700K-NHL. All cap figures come from capfriendly.com. Read the full article

BY: John Rosasco, New York Rangers NEW YORK, September 30, 2018 – New York Rangers General Manager Jeff Gorton announced today that the team has assigned Brandon Crawley to the Hartford Wolf Pack of the American Hockey League (AHL). The Rangers have 25 players on their roster, including two injured players: Matt Beleskey (separated shoulder) and Boo Nieves (concussion protocol). The roster breakdown is listed below: Forwards (13): Pavel Buchnevich, Filip Chytil, Jesper Fast, Kevin Hayes, Brett Howden, Chris Kreider, Vinni Lettieri, Cody McLeod, Vladislav Namestnikov, Ryan Spooner, Jimmy Vesey, Mika Zibanejad, Mats Zuccarello  Defensemen (8): Fredrik Claesson, Tony DeAngelo, Adam McQuaid, Neal Pionk, Kevin Shattenkirk, Brady Skjei, Brendan Smith, Marc Staal  Goaltenders (2): Alexandar Georgiev, Henrik Lundqvist Injured (2): Matt Beleskey, Boo Nieves Read the full article

Had the opportunity to meet the wonderful @bssmith2 tonight! Truly a fantastic person. It was a great night♡ #DetroitRedWings #Meijer #BrendanSmith #NHL #RedWings

⬜️ #brendansmith #inspo #😍 (at New York, New York)

-Brendan Smith