In fact, the spinning has picked up.
On Thursday, the IceCaps saw two more players — forwards Nikita Scherbak and Sven Andrighetto — recalled to the parent Montreal, while four others were signed to professional tryout contracts (PTOs) for St. John’s.
Scherbak and Andrighetto were brought up in response to the latest injuries — suffered Brendan Gallagher and Paul Byron — for the Canadiens, who already had five players in the infirmary.
For Scherbak, who has 10 goals and 10 assists in 27 games with St. John’s, this is his first promotion to Montreal, but if he wants to know about the call-up process, he’ll find no better instructor than Andrighetto. The Swiss forward has been recalled by Montreal no fewer than six times this season and five times in the last month, although in at least one case, it was simply a paper transaction.
Andrighetto, with 22 points (eight goals, 14 assists) in 20 games, is the IceCaps’ second-leading scorer, behind Chris Terry, who has 26 points for St. John’s, but has been with the Canadiens for some time.
In fact, Scherbak, Andrighetto and Terry are among nine players currently with Montreal who have also appeared in games for the IceCaps this season. The others are defencemen Mark Barberio, Zach Redmond and Ryan Johnston and forwards Michael McCarron, Bobby Farnham and Daniel Carr.
The organizational hurting isn’t confined to the Canadiens.
Among the IceCaps on the sidelines are forwards Connor Crisp and Charles Hudon, who shares the St. John’s goal-scoring lead with Terry and Scherbak. Captain Max Friberg didn’t play in Wednesday’s 6-2 road loss to the Albany Devils because of the flu and defenceman Josiah Didier left that game in the second period after blocking a shot and did not return.
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In response, the IceCaps, who take on the Binghamton Senators tonight (8:35 p.m. NT), have signed a quartet of ECHLers to PTOs.
They include one familiar face — that of forward Alexandre Ranger, who played 17 games with St. John’s under similar circumstances last season, and one familiar name.
The latter belongs to forward John McCarron, Michael’s lookalike older brother who has put up more than a point a game for the ECHL’s Florida Everblades.
Also being brought in are bruising forward Anthony Camara, a one-time Boston Bruins draft pick who played for Canada at the world junior championships four years ago, and defenceman Reggie Traccitto, who has been playing with the Brantford Beast, the IceCaps’ ECHL affiliate.
St. John’s finishes up its road trip with a game against the Syracuse Crunch Saturday night.
