Dick Baker had a nice piece on the return of underrated Doug Kublin.  He doesn’t get mentioned a lot, but he sure was missed.

Chris Capraro was traded to the South Carolina Stringrays of the ECHL.

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Going into the New England Prep season Avon Old Farms was supposed to be a pretty good, but not quite great, team.  Then on the eve of the season they were able to add Mike Pereira who was looking to transfer from South Kent.  Now the Winged Beavers are prep champions.  The last Avon player to lead them to a championship and then move onto Amherst?  Jon Quick.

Pereira had a goal and two assists in the 4-1 win over Northfield-Mount Hermon.  An NHL scout in attendance remarked that Pereira very much stood out among his peers.  NMH’s Nick Gordon, who took a visit to UMass last fall, had the lone goal for the Hoggers.

Out west (not the valley, further) Conor Allen was named USHL Defensive Player of the Week, his second such honor this season.  He had a goal, an assist, and a +4 rating in three games this past week.

Joel Hanley had a good weekend with a goal and two assists as the Newmarket Hurricanes took the first two games of their semifinal series.

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On Saturday I headed over to Foxboro where the EJHL quarterfinals were being played.  It offered me a chance to watch a few of the UMass recruits all in the course of a few hours. 

The first game I watched featured Colin Shea and the Junior Bruins against the Bay State Breakers.  You’ll remember I had a chance to watch Shea in November.  First thing I noticed is that thankfully it looks like Shea has gotten a little bigger from that time before.  He seems to have all the tools needed to be a Hockey East defenseman, he just lacks size.  He still has a ways to go, but luckily he has time as well.  Overall I liked what I saw.  He seems to be a very good skater, forwards and backwards.  Defensively he has good vision and positioning.  He might be a little too aggressive and a couple times got caught too far behind the net.  But overall he seems like a very smart defenseman.  Offensively he seems like he has no problem jumping up on the play when necessary, especially on the power play.  He still needs a lot of work on his slap shot.

The game itself was pretty crazy.  It was 1-0 Bruins when I arrived but Bay State quickly scored three goals on Lowell recruit T.J. Massie to take the 3-1 lead.  Massie looked absolutely horrible, commiting too early on one goal and trying to cheat laterally and leaving the post open for another.  He was quickly pulled.  It was nothing but scoring from there on with the Bruins eventually winning 8-6.  As I was when I first saw the team play, I was very impressed by Justin Breton who ended up with a hat trick in the game.  It still amazes me that he’ll be playing at Bentley instead of Hockey East.  I was also impressed with UNH recruit Kevin Smith.

While that game was still going on the Green Mountain Glades took on the host South Shore Kings and the newest UMass recruit, Shane Walsh.  Walsh appears to be a physical-type player who also adds some good offensive skill.  He seemed to be a decent skater and brought some high energy to the ice during his shifts.  I thought he showed good offensive vision and made some nice passes.  He also displayed a nice slapshot that got some praise from the scouts standing around me.  He played well defensively, especially on the forecheck and even made a nice disruption on the backcheck.  His play seemed similar to Scott Crowder but may have the ability to contribute more on offense.

There were a couple other players that stood out for the Kings, especially BU recruit Charlie Coyle.  He seems to have a ton of offensive skill and a couple times was able to go coast to coast for a shot on goal.  Though there were times he probably should’ve passed the puck.  Colgate recruit Chris Wagner also looked good.

I left that game early to watch Peter DeAngelo play for the Manchester Monarchs against the New York Applecore.  Unfortunately I was only able to watch one period as I wanted to get back to listen to the game up at Maine.  But I did like what I saw in that time.  DeAngelo is definitely another small guy like James Marcou or T.J. Syner.  He’s a centerman who was the primary option at faceoffs while on the ice and won the majority of them in the time I watched.  He looked to have a very quick wrist shot and put one of them off the crossbar early on.  He appeared to be a quick skater with good vision of the ice.  In another aspect that reminded me of Syner was his strong forecheck skills.  I wish I had more time to watch him because I liked what I saw in that first period.  There was also a familiar face at the Monarchs-Applecore game as former Minuteman Jordan Virtue was a linesman for the EJHL matchup.

The EJHL quarters consist of two games series and all three of the UMass recruits moved on to this weekend’s semifinals at Holy Cross.  In the end Shea had an assist on the weekend, Walsh had two goals and an assits to go with four PIM, and DeAngelo had an assist.