The team may be on break, but the news updates aren’t.
-Late yesterday morning, Mattias Tedenby was reassigned to Albany after appearing in all 4 games and only registering one assist. He had been shifted to fourth line duty Sunday night in Montreal (the one night I finally got to see a NJ game and took note of that). He had been on a 4 game goal streak when he was recalled for the start of training camp on the 13th.
-As for his replacement? No one had been recalled at the same time, leading to everyone speculating that it would be Bobby Butler going up, but since he was busy at the AHL All Star Classic in Providence (more on that shortly) the callup couldn’t happen till the next day. Well, New Jersey decided to throw a curveball…instead of Butler, it will be Matt Anderson going up to the big club for the first time. He will be making his NHL debut in Boston tonight, wearing #12 and taking Tedenby’s spot on the fourth line with Jacob Josefson and Krys Barch. It’s a well deserved chance for Anderson, after coming to the Devils as a free agent in 2010.
-Now to recap the All Star festivities in Providence, which was a clean sweep for the Western Conference:
Sunday night the West All Stars mounted a late event comeback to beat its East counterparts 12-11. Butler, who was the lone Albany representative, got into 3 events: Rapid Fire, teaming up with Syracuse defenseman Radko Gudas (and his now epic Tweeting beard) and scoring twice on Abbotsford goalie Barry Brust; Accuracy Shooting, hitting 2 targets in 8 attempts; and the Breakaway Relay, going scoreless against Grand Rapids goaltender Petr Mrazek. I do want to give a little shoutout to former River Rats goaltender Justin Peters, now with Charlotte, for taking home the Top Goaltender award. Full results can be found here.
On to the game itself. The West grabbed an early 4-1 lead after 1 period, but had to rally in the third period to grab a 7-6 win. Ryan Hamilton of Toronto was named the MVP notching a hat trick, the third goal the game winner off of Binghamton’s Robin Lehner with just 11 seconds left in regulation. Butler did snag one assist on a Bracken Kearns (Worcester) goal in the second period.
Earlier on Monday came the AHL Hall of Fame ceremony and the annual State of the League address. Our friends from Chirps at Center Ice has the full address wrapup here (audio included), but of local note: the league is committed to keeping AHL hockey in Glens Falls (oh joy…sorry, just a little whiny after having to play them 4 times in 5 games), and also in Hartford despite the affiliation and lease all expiring at the end of the season (the Rangers moving the Whale to Glens Falls rumors have been around for awhile…someone even tried to suggest the Devils would go up there. Yeah right.).
Thoughts Inside The Box 