IceCaps notebook: Recalls to WInnipeg mark development progress

ST. JOHN’S, Newfoundland and Labrador – Two of the St. John’s IceCaps more productive forwards have been recalled by the Winnipeg Jets and are seeing regular duty with the NHL team.
 
Right winger Spencer Machacek and centre Aaron Gagnon were the most recent call-ups to Winnipeg from the IceCaps. Machacek was the leading scorer in St. John’s at the time of his promotion, having gathered 11 goals, 23 assists and 34 points in 44 games. Gagnon proved to be a versatile player during 35 games with the IceCaps, collecting eight goals and 12 assists while playing on the power play and penalty killing units.
 

While this marks the first time Machacek has been called up to the parent team in Winnipeg this season, Gagnon is becoming somewhat of a familiar face to Jets’ personnel. He began the season in Winnipeg before being sent to St. John’s, and has been recalled by the Jets twice since his original demotion to the AHL.
 
Jumping back and forth between the NHL and AHL is nothing new to Gagnon, who experienced a similar situation last season when he played 19 games for the Dallas Stars and 58 games for their AHL affiliate in Texas.
 
“I went through it a lot last year with Dallas, I had six or seven recalls there,” Gagnon told the Winnipeg Sun. “You’re checking the injury lists but you can’t get too tied up with that. If you’re looking every day and trying to worry about what’s going on, it’s just another thing that’s going to weigh on you … If you can go out there and just prove you can play and be part of the team, that’s what is going to help you in the long run, no matter when a spot opens up for you.”
 
  Jets’ head coach Claude Noel had high praise for Gagnon during a discussion with Winnipeg media. He said Gagnon is capable of being much more than a short-term, injury-replacement player with the Jets.
 
“I’d like to see him get going a little bit because he can give us more as he gets comfortable. I think there’s more of a player there than we know,” Noel told the Winnipeg Free Press.
 
Thus far with the Jets, Gagnon is pointless after five games played. Machacek has played two games in Winnipeg without registering a point.
 
Negrin arrives in St. John’s
 
The IceCaps received new defensemen following a trade made by the Jets.
 
Winnipeg sent forward Akim Aliu, who had been playing for the Abbotsford Heat of the AHL, to the Calgary Flames in exchange for defenseman John Negrin. The 22-year-old defender had one assist in 26 games with Abbotsford before the trade to St. John’s, while also registering six points in nine games with the Utah Grizzlies of the ECHL earlier this season.
 
Negrin, who has nine NHL games on his resume, has yet to appear in a game for the IceCaps.
 
Meech suffers another injury
 
Derek Meech barely had time to meet his new teammates in St. John’s before suffering a knee injury that knocked him out of the line-up.
 
Meech suffered a knee injury early in the 2011-12 campaign that limited him to just nine games with Winnipeg. The Jets then assigned him to St. John’s in late January, but in just his third game as an IceCap he suffered another knee injury after being hit into the boards on a questionable check from Scott Howes of the Bridgeport Sound Tigers on Feb. 1.
 
Meech had zero points and was minus-two in three games with St. John’s. Had he remained healthy, there was speculation he may see some duty as a winger, since the team currently has an abundance of healthy defenseman to go along with a banged up group of forwards.
Meech has played on the wing in the past and it appears the IceCaps were considering asking him to move up front before he was injured.  
 
“I’m aware of it,” IceCaps head coach Keith McCambridge told the St. John’s Telegram of Meech’s abilities as a forward. “But it isn’t something we’ve discussed with him yet.”
 
Two forwards called up from ECHL
 
St. John’s made a pair of roster moves On Feb. 6, adding a couple of forwards who were having fine seasons in the ECHL.
 
The IceCaps recalled Mike Forney from the Colorado Eagles after he wracked up 13 goals, 24 assists and 37 points in 44 games to begin the season. The left winger was originally drafted by the Atlanta Thrashers/Winnipeg Jets franchise in the third round of the 2006 NHL entry draft.
Since turning pro he has predominantly played in the ECHL, but did play 12 AHL games with the Chicago Wolves between the 09-10 and 10-11 seasons.
 
St. John’s also signed Josh Lunden to a profession tryout contract on Feb. 6. Lunden had been playing with the ECHL’s Las Vegas Wranglers, notching 13 goals, 18 assists and 31 points in 30 games. He appeared in one game with the Peoria Rivermen of the AHL earlier this season, and played in 20 AHL games with the San Antonio Rampage between 2009 and 2011.
 
Both players add some bulk to the IceCaps roster, with Lunden measuring six-foot-two and 205 pounds, and Forney standing six-foot-two and 195 pounds. Chiarot send down
 
The IceCaps decided rookie defenseman Ben Chiarot needed some professional seasoning and assigned the 20-year-old to the Colorado Eagles, the team’s ECHL affiliate.
 
Chiarot was the youngest player on the IceCaps and was having difficulty finding a regular place in the line-up. He was a healthy scratch far more than he played, having dressed for only 14 games. He scored one goal and added one assist for St. John’s. In Colorado, the six-foot-three, 220 pound d-man has two goals and two assists in five games.
 
Colorado head coach Chris Stewart seems pleased to have Chiarot in his line-up.
 
“A talent like that, that is so young, the last thing you want to do is hinder his progress by keeping him on the bench too long. That can be devastating to his psyche and his overall confidence,” Stewart told the Loveland Reporter-Herald. “They sent him here knowing he’ll get the ice time … He’s a big, mobile, young defenseman who moves the puck well and has good hands.”
 
Chiarot is taking the demotion in stride and by all accounts understands the decision to send him to the ECHL.
 
“Only being 20, I’m as young as any rookie in the pros and those guys have been playing for a long time. There are always good things to take from any one of them,” Chiarot told the Loveland Reporter-Herald. “More experience (will help), playing my game of being physical and moving the puck up the ice. Just being the solid all-around defenseman is what you have to be. You can’t be one-dimensional to play in the NHL, you have to bring everything.”
 
Contact Darcy.MacRae@prohockeynews.com
Photos by Jeff Cull for Pro Hockey News