The 18-year-old Fitzpatrick (he turns 19 later this month) was named the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League’s latest third star of the week after posting wins in two of three games for the Sherbrooke Phoenix while allowing just a total of six goals on 119 shots (.950 save percentage).
Fitzpatrick, who played his midget hockey in Nova Scotia after his family moved there, actually had a strong start to the 2016-17 QMJHL season as he had a 2.72 GAA and .919 save percentage in 10 games in October even though the Phoenix managed to win just three of those contests.
However, November was mostly forgettable.
After Fitzpatrick started the month with three straight victories, he lost five of six starts, with a no-decision when he got the hook after giving up five goals in the first period against Val d’Or.
If that wasn’t bad enough, Fitzpatrick ended November on the injury list with a concussion that kept him on the sidelines for three weeks. But since returning to action, the second-round draft pick of the St. Louis Blues has reverted to his early-season form, putting up a 2.31 GAA and .938 save percentage in December.
Here some other notes about players from this province who can be followed in our Newfoundlanders Away weekly statistical feature, which can be found in Wednesday’s print edition of The Telegram:
• Newfoundland’s representation in the National Hockey League dropped back to zero on New Year’s Day when Nashville reassigned defenceman Adam Pardy of Bonavista to the Milwaukee Admirals of the American Hockey League.
Pardy has played four games for Nashville this season.
However, while the NHL is once again without any Newfoundlanders, we will continue to assert that big-league clubs in need of scoring should be paying attention to winger Teddy Purcell of St. John’s, who entered Tuesday on a seven-game point-scoring streak with the AHL’s Ontario Reign and who has scored a point in 10 of 11 contests since being sent to the Reign by the Los Angeles Kings.
Let’s put it this way: If Purcell had been with Ontario all season and managed to maintain his current scoring pace, he would be leading all Reign players by 10 points and be the second-leading scorer in the entire AHL.
• With the QMJHL’s Saint John Sea Dogs missing defencemen Thomas Chabot (Canada) and Jakub Zboril (Czech Republic) while they played in the world junior hockey championship, the team recalled Ian Smallwood from Woodstock of the Maritime junior A league and the defenceman from St. John’s scored his first-ever QMJHL goal in a 7-2 win over the Moncton Wildcats on Dec. 30, helping Saint John hold on to second place overall in the league.
• While Kyle McGrath’s name isn’t on our Newfoundlanders Away list … yet, it’s worth noting that the 17-year-old forward with the major midget St. John’s Maple Leafs saw his QMJHL’s rights traded Tuesday as he and a sixth-round draft pick were sent from the Charlottetown Islanders to the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles for third-year QMJHL winger Dillon Boucher.
McGrath, who had been a sixth-round draft pick of Charlottetown last year, leads the Newfoundland and Labrador Major Midget Hockey League with 49 points (including a league-topping 24 goals) in 25 games.
