First, the big news finally came down after several days of rumors that Travis Green, the guy who took over the Hawks last November 28th and took them all the way to the Memorial Cup Championship game, got the Head Coaching gig in Utica, New York. This is a new team that was added this year and will now be the Vancouver Canuck's AHL farm team. This is an excellent place for Green to end up, after only half a season of head coaching in the WHL. It had to help that Mike Johnston still has connections within the Canucks organization.
One had to know that after all of the WHL teams filled their coaching vacancies, Green was going to make the jump to the AHL as a head coach or the NHL as an assistant. He will be missed, as it seems that he really clicked with the players and got the most out of them night in and night out.
Another news item that came down was Seth Jones already signing an entry level deal with the Nashville Predators. Jones signing this early means that it's moving more towards a 100% guarantee that this is the last Portland will see of Jones, barring any injuries.
Also, Brendan Leipsic, who was inexplicably left of the Canadian World Juniors camp invite list, was added last week. This is for the camp that will take place August 4th-10th in Quebec and Lake Placid, N.Y. I believe that once Canadian Coach Brent Sutter gets an eyeful of all of the things that Leipsic can bring, he will have a hard time leaving him out of the lineup.
Lastly, 16 year old d-man Nick Heid tweeted out that he will be spending this next season with his U-16 AAA team. So he will not be one of the newcomers coming to Portland's camp.
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