Ryan Salvis

Okay, scratch what I said about not knowing when it would become official...

The Bucks have announced that they have signed forward Ryan Salvis to take the team's 19th roster spot heading into this weekend's games.

Salvis, a 6-foot, 190-pound center iceman, comes to Laredo after being waived by the Bakersfield Condors of the East Coast Hockey League. He played one game with the Condors this season and had played with the team in four regular season and six playoff games last season. You can read more about that here. Because he played so few games at the professional level, Salvis will be considered a rookie.

Salvis' other experience came at the junior and collegiate levels, as he spent three and a half seasons with the Moncton Wildcats of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, half of one with the Lincoln Stars of the U.S. Hockey League and three with St. Francis Xavier University of Canadian Interuniversity Sport.

Coach Ruskowski is bringing Salvis in with the hope that he will be able to get his third scoring line...and one that can actually score. In practice yesterday, he put Bobby Russell on the line with the Jason Dixon and Alex Goupil tandem that has combined for 21 points already this season, so we'll see if that sticks. It may have only been for power play practice, but it could be a good fit.

Player/assistant coach Jeff Bes told me yesterday the main thing he thinks the team has been lacking so far is consistency but that the current lineup could have the talent to do what it needs to do if it works hard enough. That said, he thought they could use another player or two to get things going, and he and Ruskowski are both hoping Salvis will be that man.

Oh, and apparently he will be wearing No. 13.

UPDATE: The Corpus Christi IceRays have made another addition of their own, as Greg Rajan is reporting that the team has signed defenseman Jason Krischuk. I guess Sylvain Cloutier is more focused on fixing up his defense than making offensive adjustments like Coach Ruskowski has been. Speaking of Cloutier...yesterday, Bryan Benway and I were discussing how young some of the coaches are this season, which prompted me to look at Cloutier's Hockey DB page, where I discovered he played for the Guelph Storm with Bes for two seasons in the Ontario Hockey League. I'm surprised no had noticed that previously (unless I just missed it when someone did). Oh, and yes, Cloutier is younger than Bes.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Mike Gorman has officially signed with the Amarillo Gorillas, as evidenced by the CHL transactions page.