BGSU's Reirden Out as Capitals Head Coach

Todd Reirden (Bowling Green) is looking for a new job. The head coach of the Washington Capitals the last two years, the former NCAA and NHL defenseman was relieved of those duties on Sunday by the Capitals’ organization following another first-round postseason loss.

Reirden, 49, led Washington to an 89-46-16 overall regular-season record and two Metropolitan Division titles over the last two winters. The Capitals, however, were eliminated in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in each year, including a five-game loss to the New York islanders in Toronto this month, as the league restarted playing operations during the COVID-19 pandemic that had originally suspended the season back in March.

Reirden won the Stanley Cup with the Capitals in 2018, in his second season with the team as associate coach, after two years as an assistant coach, and was named head coach after the Capitals won their first NHL championship. Prior to Washington, he served four seasons as an assistant coach with the Pittsburgh Penguins, after spending one year as an assistant and one-and-a-half-years as head coach with Pittsburgh’s top minor-league affiliate, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (AHL).

Reirden, a 6-foot-5 native of Deerfield, Ill., skated on defense for Bowling Green from 1990 to 1994, after prepping with both Deerfield Academy and Tabor Academy in New England. In four NCAA seasons with the Falcons, he collected 24 goals and 52 assists for 76 points to go with 160 penalty minutes in 140 career contests.

Drafted by the New Jersey Devils in the 12th round of the 1990 NHL Entry Draft, Reirden went on to play professionally from 1994 to 2007. He collected 11-36—47 points and 181 PIM in 188 career NHL outings, including five Stanley Cup playoff games, while manning the blueline for Edmonton, St. Louis, Atlanta and Phoenix. He also played in the ECHL, AHL and IHL, and finished his playing career with one season apiece in Germany and Austria.

Following his retirement as an active player, Reirden joined BGSU as an assistant coach for the 2007-08 campaign before re-joining the professional ranks the following season as an assistant with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.

Alaska Anchorage Plans to Eliminate Men's Hockey Program

The University of Alaska Anchorage hockey program has soldiered on for 40 years—but next season might be the last one for the Seawolves.

UAA announced Wednesday that it was planning to restructure its athletic program, which would result in the elimination of four varsity programs: men’s ice hockey, women’s gymnastics, women’s skiing and men’s skiing, which would result in annual savings of about $2.5 million. The restructuring would also leave UAA with eight NCAA programs, all at the Division II level, following the 2020-21 academic year. Only men’s hockey and women’s gymnastics competed in NCAA Division I.

The Seawolf hockey program got its start in 1979-80 playing at the UAA Sports Center as a Division II independent under head coach and program founder Kelvin “Brush” Christiansen. UAA posted a winning record in each of its five seasons at that level, shifting home venues to the newly-built 6,200-seat Sullivan Arena in downtown Anchorage in 1983, before also moving up to the NCAA Division I ranks in 1984-85.

After one season as a Division I independent, UAA played three seasons in the short-lived Great West Hockey Conference before re-joining the independent ranks. The Seawolves enjoyed their greatest success over the next four seasons, winning at least 18 games in each campaign, and also earned three consecutive independent berths to the NCAA Division I tournament, including a trip to the quarterfinal round in 1991. The last of those teams registered a program-record 27 victories overall in 1991-92. 

UAA joined the Western Collegiate Hockey Association as an affiliate member in 1992-93, and finished 18-13-4 overall that winter. The next season it became a full-time member of the WCHA, with Christiansen stepping down as head coach following the 1995-96 season, having fashioned a 287–229–30 record over 17 years. He was subsequently replaced at the helm by Dean Talafous (1996-2001), former UAA player and assistant coach John Hill (2001-05), and Dave Shyiak (2005-2013).

The Seawolves made the WCHA Final Five three times (2004, 2011, 2014), although they have posted just one winning season overall from 1993 until the present. The 2013-14 squad finished 18-16-4 under former head coach Matt Thomas, who succeeded Shyiak beginning with that season. The program has recorded just 12 campaigns with double-digit wins since joining the WCHA on a full-time basis.

UAA moved its home games back on campus to its hockey practice home, now known as the Seawolf Sports Center, beginning with the 2019-20 season under current head coach Matt Curley, and finished 4-25-7 overall last year. The university had tentatively planned to expand the rink’s capacity from 800 spectators in the next few years, until Wednesday’s announcement. The Alaska Airlines Center, the newest UAA athletic facility that opened on campus in the fall of 2014, is not equipped with an ice-making apparatus.

UAA has sent dozens of players on to the professional hockey ranks, with at least nine former Seawolves having reached the National Hockey League to date. Mike Peluso became the first former Seawolf to hoist the Stanley Cup when he won it with the NHL’s New Jersey Devils in 1995, and Jay Beagle followed suit in 2018 with the Washington Capitals.

Members of the public who wish to comment on UAA's restructuring decision may send feedback to uaa_feedback@alaska.edu, or can attend a virtual town hall meeting and Board of Regents public testimony later this month, with information on both events available at uaa.alaska.edu/calendars/public.

UAA was set to be without a conference home following next season, along with Alaska (Fairbanks) and Alabama-Huntsville, as the WCHA men’s league is scheduled to break up. Bemidji State, Bowling Green, Ferris State, Lake Superior State, Michigan Tech, Minnesota State, and Northern Michigan are all slated to withdraw from the WCHA following the 2020-21 season to reform the Central Collegiate Hockey Association, which itself originally disbanded in 2013.

Alabama-Huntsville announced earlier this year that it would be eliminating its men’s hockey program, only to have it at least temporarily saved by an aggressivefundraising campaign. Alaska (Fairbanks) announced Wednesday that it was not planning to eliminate ice hockey or any of its other nine NCAA athletic programs at present. 

NCAA Players Shine in 2020 Stanley Cup Start

Some notes on several former NCAA players from the qualifying round/round robin portion of the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs contested in Edmonton and Toronto that began this month:

- Chicago captain Jonathan Toews (North Dakota) had four goals and seven points in four games in the Blackhawks' qualifying round victory over Edmonton.

- Quinn Hughes (Michigan) recorded five assists and six points for Vancouver as the Canucks outlasted Minnesota in four contests.

- Cam Atkinson scored twice and set up three other goals for Columbus as the Bluejackets rebounded to overcome Toronto in five games, the only series in the qualifying round that went the distance.

- Cam Talbot (Alabama-Huntsville) registered three victories in goal, and also posted a 1.51 goals-against average and a shutout for Calgary as the Flames eliminated Winnipeg in four games.

- Kevin Hayes (Boston College) assisted on all four Philadelphia goals in a 4-1 win over Tampa Bay that clinched the first seed in the Eastern Conference for the Flyers.

The NHL's usual Stanley Cup round of 16 began on Tuesday. Four series will be played in each city (Edmonton and Toronto), with each series a best-of-seven affair.

Three Ivy Leaguers Turn Pro

Several more Ivy League hockey players with NCAA eligibility remaining have instead signed professional contracts.

Morgan Barron (Cornell), who led the Big Red to the ECAC hockey title and a No. 1 national ranking in the COVID-abbreviated 2019-20 season, has signed with the NHL's New York Rangers after three winters in Ithaca, N.Y. A native of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Barron, 21, was drafted 174th overall by the Rangers in 2017. In three seasons at Cornell, the 6-foot-3 center posted 34 goals and 50 assists for 84 points. He was a first team Division I All-America selection and a Hobey Baker Memorial Award finalist last season, and was also a two-time Ivy League First Team choice and two-time ECAC Hockey First Team pick.

Jack Drury (Harvard) has passed up his final two campaigns with the Crimson to join Vaxjo (Sweden). The son of former Harvard standout Ted Drury, and the nephew of 2001 Stanley Cup champion Chris Drury (Boston University), the youngest Drury collected 29-34—63 points in two seasons in Cambridge, including a 20-goal campaign last year. A six-foot center from Winnetka, Ill., he was drafted 42nd overall by the Carolina Hurricanes in 2018, and was a second team selection in both the Ivy League and ECAC Hockey last year. He also skated for the United state sin teh last two World Junior Championships.

Henry Bowlby (Harvard) decided three years with the Crimson was enough, as he inked an entry-level contract with the Florida Panthers as a free agent. A 6-foot-1 center from Edina, Minn., the undrafted Bowlby, 23, registered a total of 21-24—45 points in his tenure at Harvard,  which included a 2019 NCAA tournament berth.

The Ivy League has canceled all fall sports due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which has pushed back the start of the 2020-21 hockey season to at least Jan. 1.

St. Thomas to Join NCAA Division I, CCHA and WCHA

The NCAA Division I men’s and women’s ice hockey ranks will increase by one team apiece when the University of St. Thomas (Minn.) moves up from the Division III level in the next two years.

A founding member of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, St. Thomas will depart that conference following the 2020-21 season to join the new Central Collegiate Hockey Association for men’s hockey in 2021-22, and the Western Collegiate Hockey Association on the women’s side at the same time.

The St. Thomas men’s team has played annually since 1920-21, save for five seasons around World War II. They boast an all-time record of 1,163-665-116 (.628), according to USCHO.com, all while in the MIAC. Since the 1983-84 campaign, the Tommies’ ledger includes 21 MIAC regular-season championships, 13 MIAC postseason titles, and 16 NCAA tournament berths, including national championship game appearances in 2000 and 2005. The program also last finished under .500 in a season in 1981-82.

The St. Thomas women's program began play with the 2001-02 season, and since then the Tommies have fashioned an overall mark of 323-140-50 (.678). They have also claimed six MIAC regular-season crowns and six MIAC postseason titles to go along with six national tournament berths, including NCAA Frozen Four appearances in both 2014 and 2019.

St. Thomas will swell the new CCHA, which is slated to begin play as a whole in the fall of 2021, to eight teams, while the Tommies women’s team will also boost the women’s WCHA to eight schools.

Harvard's Kerfoot Scores Twice for Toronto in NHL's Return

Alexander Kerfoot (Harvard) scored twice for the victorious Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday evening as the NHL returned to action for the first time in four months. The Leafs defeated their traditional rival, the Montreal Canadiens, 4-2, in an exhibition game at Scotiabank Arena as the NHL re-emerged from a hiatus that began in March due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), which also canceled the remainder of the 2019-20 NHL regular season.

Kerfoot scored Toronto's second and third goals, both in the second period, against Montreal as the Leafs built leads of 2-0 and 3-1. Toronto is one of two NHL hubs, along with Rogers Place in Edmonton, that will be used during an abbreviated postseason with extra contending teams to award this year’s Stanley Cup. Eastern Conference teams will play in Ontario, while Western Conference squads will skate in Alberta, with the final round to be contested in Toronto. The St. Louis Blues are the defending champion.

The Maple Leafs will face off with the Columbus Blue Jackets in a best-of-five qualifying series that will begin on Saturday at Scotiabank Place, while the Canadiens will meet the Pittsburgh Penguins in another Eastern Conference series match-up, also in Toronto. Also on Tuesday in exhibition play, the Philadelphia Flyers edged Pittsburgh, 3-2, in overtime in Toronto, while in Edmonton the host Oilers upended the rival Calgary Flames, 4-1.

A 5-foot-10 native of Vancouver, Kerfoot, 25, played his first two NHL campaigns with the Colorado Avalanche, with whom he posted 34 goals and 51 assists for 85 points over 157 regular-season outings after signing with them as a free agent. He was traded to Toronto last July, and proceeded to tally 9-19—28 points in 65 games with the Leafs this season before it was suspended by COVID-19. 

Originally drafted 150th overall by the New Jersey Devils in 2012 in the midst of his Junior A career with Coquitlam (BCHL), Kerfoot played at Harvard from 2013 to 2017. In four NCAA seasons, he notched 36-87—123 points in 121 career outings, and also captained the Crimson to the 2017 ECAC Hockey regular-season and postseason championships, plus the 2017 NCAA Frozen Four in Chicago.

Harvard's Rathbone Signs with Canucks

Rising junior defenseman Jack Rathbone (Harvard) has left college hockey to sign an entry-level contract with the Vancouver Canucks, according to The Hockey News.

Rathbone, a 5-11, 190-pound blueliner from West Roxbury, Mass., finished fourth in team scoring this season for the Crimson with seven goals and 24 assists for 31 points in 28 games. In two seasons and 60 career NCAA contests played with Harvard, he collected 14 goals and 38 assists for 52 points to go with 22 penalty minutes. As a freshman, he helped Harvard to the 2019 NCAA Tournament.

The son of former Boston College forward Jason Rathbone (BC'92), Jack Rathbone prepped with both the Cape Cod Whalers and the Dexter School prior to skating for Harvard. A two-time captain at Dexter, he was drafted in the fourth round (95th overall) by the Canucks in the 2017 NHL Draft.