Friday, September 19, 2008

Two Rookie Centers

The Bucks upped their training camp roster to 21 this morning, announcing the signings of rookies Justin Saulnier and Jason Dixon. Just to warn you, those Hockey DB pages are incomplete.

Last season, Saulnier played with the Kent Cup champion Yarmouth Mariners of the Maritime Junior A Hockey League and was named a First-Team All-Star.

The 5-11, 190-pound center scored 24 goals and had 43 assists for 67 points during 51 regular season games, then had eight goals and eight assists for 16 points in the Mariners' 16 playoff games.

His complete 2007-08 stats can be seen here.

Dixon played his 2007-08 season with the Windsor St. Clair Saints, a junior "AAA" team based out of St. Clair College in Ontario.

The 5-10, 175-pound forward had 13 goals and 27 assists for 40 points in 29 regular season games and had two assists in four playoff games.

His complete 2007-08 stats can be found here.

When I spoke to Bucks majority owner Glenn Hart yesterday for my story that will run in Sunday's paper, he said the rookies that are coming into camp this season are some of the best he has ever seen.

I know head coach/general manager Terry Ruskowski had been interested in signing Saulnier from the start, and I guess he got what he wanted on that front. Both of these young forwards (Saulnier is 21, Dixon 23) put up impressive numbers last season, and having those skills in the leagues they played in should transfer well to the CHL.

I'll be calling coach soon to get some of his thoughts on these players for a story in tomorrow's paper.

In other Southeast Division news, the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees announced yesterday that they have traded for the rights to defenseman Steve Makway. Makway spent the past two seasons with the RiverKings, starting in Memphis and moving with the team to Mississippi, but his first CHL experience came with the Bucks during the 2004-05 season.

The 6-5, 230-pounder put up an average of 42 points and 164.5 penalty minutes during his two seasons with the RiverKings and looks to be a welcome addition to Rio's defensive corps.

Brian Sandalow has some more on Makway, along with some other topics, including his plans and those of Killer Bees Vice President of Communications Rich Bocchini for video blogging during the coming season.

Meanwhile, the Texas Brahmas have re-signed goaltender David Cacciola. You can catch up with the Brahmas' signings and other news on the Texas Brahmas Insider blog.

Outside of the division, the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs have re-signed half of their dynamic netminding duo in Ken Carroll.

Click here to see all of the offseason transactions.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What about Traylen going to Corpus? What's the word on that? Was he a free agent, or are did the Bucks and Icerays agree on something?