The Vancouver Canucks assigned 23 players to the Chicago Wolves on Friday, including 12 who played for the Wolves during the 2011-12 season and four more who played in the National Hockey League last season.
Goaltenders Eddie Lack and Joe Cannata; defensemen Chris Tanev, Kevin Connauton, Yann Sauve and Adam Polasek; left wings Bill Sweatt, Anton Rodin and Darren Archibald; right wing Andrew Gordon and centers Jordan Schroeder and Stefan Schneider helped the Wolves win the American Hockey League’s 2012 Midwest Division title.
Centers Andrew Ebbett, Alexandre Mallet, Alex Friesen and Prab Rai; right wings Zack Kassian, Guillaume Desbiens and Kellan Tochkin; left wing Steven Anthony and defensemen Derek Joslin, Patrick Mullen and Peter Andersson also have been assigned to Chicago.
Lack led Wolves goaltenders last year with a 21-20-3 record and 2.31 goals-against average. Schroeder finished third on the team with 21 goals and 44 points in 76 regular-season games. Sweatt ranked sixth with 16 goals and 34 points while Connauton, who played in the 2012 American Hockey League All-Star Classic, wound up seventh with 13 goals and 33 points. Rodin finished 10th with 10 goals and eighth with 27 points. Tanev contributed 14 assists in 34 games for the Wolves as well as two assists and a plus-10 plus/minus rating in 25 games for Vancouver.
Kassian, an AHL All-Star in 2012, posted three goals and four assists in 27 games for the Buffalo Sabres last season before being traded to Vancouver, where he contributed one goal and two assists in 17 regular-season appearances. The 29-year-old Ebbett, an AHL All-Star in 2008, has 24 goals and 34 assists in 163 NHL games spread over five seasons, which includes five goals and one assist in 18 games last season for Vancouver.
Joslin, also a former AHL All-Star (2009), notched two goals and two assists in 44 games for the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes to go with three assists in four games for the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers. Desbiens, who appeared in 10 games for the NHL’s Calgary Flames last year, returns to the Wolves after playing in 80 games over the course of three seasons. He participated in 23 regular-season games and one playoff game for the 2008 Calder Cup champions.
The Wolves open their 19th season on Saturday, Oct. 13, when they battle the Rockford IceHogs at Allstate Arena.
