AHL gamers serving to Canada vie for Spengler Cup title

Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Options Author

A slew of acquainted AHL names will likely be spending the subsequent week in Switzerland.

December on the worldwide hockey calendar implies that the Swiss ski resort city of Davos hosts the Spengler Cup. Hockey Canada ices a crew on the six-team match every year and depends closely on American Hockey League expertise on mortgage to fill out its roster. In its 97th yr, the Spengler Cup is hockey’s oldest worldwide membership match.

Eleven present AHL gamers are on Crew Canada’s roster together with Rockford IceHogs captain Brett Seney, who’s one level off the league scoring lead with 30 factors (9 objectives, 21 assists) in 29 video games. Michel Therrien, a head coach for seven seasons with AHL associates for the Montreal Canadiens and Pittsburgh Penguins, is in that very same function for Canada, and his workers additionally options assistant coach Drew Bannister, who spent elements of six seasons in AHL teaching roles for the St. Louis Blues; Bannister took the Springfield Thunderbirds to the 2022 Calder Cup Finals.

Seney and Canada opened play Friday with a 3-2 win over a crew of U.S. Collegiate Selects. The match, which runs by way of New 12 months’s Eve, additionally incorporates a pair of Swiss golf equipment in host HC Davos and HC Fribourg-Gottéron, IFK Helsinki (Finland), and HC Sparta Prague (Czechia).

Ontario Reign captain Joe Hicketts will carry over that function and lead Canada. Becoming a member of Hicketts in Canada’s management group is one other AHL captain, Mason Shaw of the Manitoba Moose; Shaw will function an alternate captain. Springfield captain Matthew Peca can be donning Canadian red-and-white in Davos.

Canada’s blue line has a very deep AHL look to it. Together with Hicketts, Canada’s protection corps has Calen Addison (Utica Comets), Nolan Allan (Rockford), Nikolas Brouillard (San Diego) and Jake Livingstone. Up entrance together with Peca, Seney and Shaw, the Canadian roster has Graeme Clarke (Hershey), Jean-Luc Foudy (Iowa) and Anthony Richard (Lehigh Valley).

A Spengler Cup invitation means an opportunity for AHL gamers to signify their residence nation internationally. Whereas that is Seney’s second consecutive yr going to the match, all the different AHL expertise is making its Spengler Cup debut. Canada, a 16-time Spengler Cup champion since making its debut in 1984, final received the match in 2019.

On the American Hockey League beat for 20 years, TheAHL.com options author Patrick Williams additionally at the moment covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is an everyday contributor on SiriusXM NHL Community Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his excellent protection of the league in 2016.