Manchester Monarchs update

The up-and-down nature of the season continues for the Manchester Monarchs, the Kings’ American Hockey League affiliate. After a slow start, the Monarchs moved into first place in their division in late December, and had goalie Jeff Zatkoff and defenseman Thomas Hickey named to the AHL All-Star Game. Then the Monarchs fell off the table, with a franchise-worst seven-game losing streak. That ended last week, and now the Monarchs have won three consecutive games. Manchester hosts St. John’s on Friday and Worcester on Saturday before a five-day All-Star break. The All-Star Game will be played Monday.

The Monarchs have had a series of injuries that have kept players out of the lineup at different times. Robbie Czarnik has not returned to the lineup since suffering a major hit to the head on Jan. 15 against Portland. Don’t look to the Monarchs for much offensive help. Chances are, if Manchester had forwards ready to step into top-six roles in the NHL, they would already be here. Marc-Andre Cliche leads the Monarchs with 13 goals and 29 assists and is considered NHL-ready if the Kings needed a bottom-six forward. Brandon Kozun has 12 goals in an up-and-down season. Dwight King has impressed, with eight goals and 26 points, but the Kings would like to see more offensive development. Jordan Nolan (nine goals, 11 assists) is making positive steps. In goal, the Monarchs are splitting games between Zatkoff (2.27 goals-against average, .928 save percentage in 24 games) and Martin Jones (2.76, .915 in 26 games).

Finally, as first reported by Bob McKenzie of TSN, Monarchs forward Cam Paddock cleared waivers and is likely to have his contract terminated. No huge surprise here. Paddock turns 29 in a couple months and had five points in 39 games with the Monarchs. The Kings signed him to a one-year contract in September after he was a non-roster invitee to training camp. Paddock previously played in Germany, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him return overseas. [UPDATE: Paddock will indeed move to a pro team in Germany.]

Rules for Blog Commenting

  • No profanity, slurs or other offensive language. Replacing letters with symbols does not turn expletives into non-expletives.
  • Personal attacks against other blog commenters, and/or blatant attempts to antagonize other comments, are not tolerated. Respectful disagreement is encouraged. Posts that continually express the same singular opinion will be deleted.
  • Comments that incite political, religious or similar debates will be deleted.
  • Please do not discuss, or post links to websites that illegally stream NHL games.
  • Posting under multiple user names is not allowed. Do not type in all caps. All violations are subject to comment deletion and/or banning of commenters, per the discretion of the blog administrator.

Repeated violations of the blog rules will result in site bans, commensurate with the nature and number of offenses.

Please flag any comments that violate the site rules for moderation. For immediate problems regarding problematic posts, please email zdooley@lakings.com.