Pro Hockey Notes (AHL)

Today's edition of Pro Hockey Notes will deal with Clarkson's alumni in the American Hockey League and features plenty of video clips.

There are five ex-Golden Knights on AHL rosters at the moment: Matt Nickerson (Springfield), Randy Jones (Adirondack), Nick Dodge (Albany), Grant Clitsome (Syracuse) and Steve Zalewski (Worcester).

Also Clarkson's all-time winningest head coach, Mark Morris, is leading the Manchester Monarchs.

(One note: Instead of the stat box that traditionally will follow every player, I will be mentioning their stats in this mini-updates. )

Here's a brief look at every player:

Randy Jones

Jones, a defenseman,spent the last three years as a regular in the National Hockey League with the Philadelphia Flyers, scoring 13 goals with 56 assists in 217 games.

He's beginning this season with the Flyers' AHL affiliate in Glens Falls, but that is more due to budgetary concerns. Jones is likely to be traded to an NHL team sometime in the near future.

So far in five games with Adirondack he's picked up one assist and has a minus-two rating.

By sending Jones to Adirondack the Flyers removed $2.75 million from their salary cap.

Steve Zalewski

Zalewski, a forward, had a brief two-game stint with the San Jose Sharks last weekend, but was sent back to Worcester Friday.

He made an immediate impact scoring two goals with one assist on Saturday in a 7-5 loss to Lowell (see video highlights of that game below, including his final goal at 2:34 of the clip)

Zalewski has two goals and two assists in five games for Worcester this season.

Nick Dodge

Dodge, a forward and former two-year Clarkson captain, had a goal of helping Albany get off to a better start this season.

The Carolina Hurricanes AHL affiliate finished last year 33-40-3-4 but so far the River Rats are 4-2 this season and lead the East Division.

"Nobody is thinking about last year anymore," Dodge told the Albany Times-Union. "Last year is last year. We got off to such a bad start, we were out of it 20 games into the season."

Dodge has two goals in the first six games for Albany and here's a clip of him speaking prior to the first day of training camp:

Grant Clitsome

Clitsome, a defenseman, got a long look by the Columbus Blue Jackets in training camp but is starting the season in Syracuse.

He has two assists and a plus-five rating after six games with the Crunch.

One preseason highlight for Clitsome came in a 5-2 win on Sept. 24 against the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins.

"Guys are getting a chance to play against teams who are playing full NHL rosters, or close to it," Clitsome told the Columbus Dispatch. "It's a great teast for some of the young guys."

In that game Clitsome played several minutes on the power play and had an assist and a plus-two rating.

He also got into a fight with Petr Kalus of the Minnesota Wild on Sept. 22. Here's a clip of that shot from the stands. The actual fight is a ways away, just watch the big guy in the blue jersey making a tackle that would make any NFL defensive coordinator proud.

Matt Nickerson

After spending the last two years playing in Europe, mostly Finland, Nickerson, a defenseman, is back in North America.

He was signed by the Edmonton Oilers in the offseason and has played in one game for their AHL franchise, the Springfield Falcons.

Nickerson had 179 penalty minutes in 38 games in his only season with Clarkson (2003-04) and had 145 and 156 minutes in his two seasons with Ilves Tampere of Finland.

Here's an interesting clip shot from Finland two years ago (watch the guy in the red No. 50 jersey).

Believe it or not, off the ice Nickerson actually is a nice guy.

NHL Goal Update

There was another Clarkson goal scored in the NHL this week, this one courtesy of Hobey Baker finalist Todd White of the Atlanta Thrashers on Saturday:

This Day in Clarkson History

And, to wrap up this long post of videos, exactly two years ago today this moment happened in Cheel Arena as former St. Lawrence equipment manager George Frank was attempting to take a bunch of sticks to the Saint bench about an hour before gametime: