Thursday, August 28, 2008

Signings Galore

The Los Angeles Kings have signed their second round pick, Vyatcheslav Voinov, to a standard three year entry level deal. If you remember correctly, he's apart of the six Russian players that are being investigated by the International Ice Hockey Federation. Now it will be up to the Kings if he will play in the AHL or the QMJHL. The Moncton Wildcats hold his CHL rights. He has played with men the last few years in the old Russian Super League. Maybe they will give him a nine game look in the AHL and go from there.

They also signed forward Andrei Loktionov. He was drafted by the Windsor Spitfires of the Ontario Hockey League.

The Portland Winterhawks have signed the 2008 second overall pick, Ty Rattie, to a Western Hockey League player contract yesterday. The 6'0 forward had 75 goals and 56 assists in 33 league games in the Alberta Major Bantam Hockey League.

The Kamloops Blazers have signed a few players. They signed two California kids in defenseman Brandon Underwood, and forward Uriah Machuga. Underwood plays with LA Jr Kings and Machuga comes from the California Wave program. The team also signed forwards Cole Grbavac, and Neil Landry.

Talk about a stinker of a press conference in London, they have announced the signing of Christian Thomas. I thought they signed him back in June. If I was a sports writer in the area, I would demand some real news and compensation for drive down to the arena. It was so tight lipped, many people thought some big was going down.

The Sudbury Wolves got some bad news when they found out Nick Quinn and Kevin Lind won't be in camp. It sounded like a total surprise to General Manager and Head Coach Mike Foligno.

"Nick Quinn caught us off guard," Foligno said. "We felt all along he would come to camp, but he told us this late in the game that he was going to stay down south because he's not ready. He'll be playing Tier II hockey with father this year."

Lind is a highly ranked prospect who the Wolves took a flyer on in this past summer's draft after the young American said he was going the U. S. college route instead. However, Lind did attend the Wolves' rookie summer camp and impressed, especially during an impressive scrimmage-long, back-and- forth battle with top pick John McFarland. The Wolves were hoping the rookie camp experience would woo Lind to Sudbury during the summer and still have hopes of having him in a Wolves uniform down the road.

"Kevin Lind is going to stay with his family and maybe look at coming here next year instead," Foligno said.

That's a big surprise for a second round pick to not too show up. Maybe he has NCAA aspirations but it sounds like the team didn't know about the aspirations. Lind on the other hand, it didn't really surprise me that he didn't show up. Showing up at rookie camp doesn't mean he wants to play Major Junior. It's ice time during the summer.

The Halifax Mooseheads have traded for Scott McDonald, who saw very little time with the Saint John Sea Dogs last year. The Sea Dogs receive an eighth round pick in 2010 but most likely it will turn into a sixth round pick if McDonald plays one game this season.

That's My Take

(Nathan also is a writer for MVN.com. He's the writer for the Asylum which covers the Lewiston Maineiacs of the QMJHL. He's also a regular contributor to the NHL Source also at MVN.com. He can be reached at fbbhgfan@aol.com)

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