Carolina Hurricanes stay busy with AHL call-ups and acquisitions

Peter Koutroumpis, Triangle Sports Network
Peter Koutroumpis, Triangle Sports Network
Peter Koutroumpis, Triangle Sports Network

RALEIGH, N.C. – A week following the NHL’s trade deadline, the Carolina Hurricanes still remained busy in shuffling players around, in and out of the organization.

After reassigning forwards Brock McGinn and Derek Ryan back to the team’s American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, the Charlotte Checkers, the Hurricanes recalled forward Brendan Woods on Sunday.

As Woods led the practice cool-down stretch team during his first call-up of the season, the front office made more moves on Monday to reshape the Checkers roster.

In the first of two transactions that took place on the day before the AHL’s trade deadline, the Checkers announced the acquisition of forward Andrew Miller on loan from the Bakersfield Condors.

In return, the Checkers loaned forward Zach Boychuk to Bakersfield.

Miller, 27, ranked second on the Condors in scoring with 39 points, including a team-high 24 assists.

He’s tallied 133 points (50g, 83a) in 159 career AHL games with Oklahoma City and Bakersfield over his first three professional seasons since playing at Yale.

The five-foot-10-inch, 181-pound Miller has also posted six points (1g, 5a) in 15 NHL games with Edmonton, and became the first Oilers player to score his first NHL goal on a penalty shot.

In college, he captained Yale to its first-ever NCAA title in 2013 and was named Frozen Four MVP with four points (2g, 2a) in two games.

Boychuk, 26, moved to the Condors as the Checkers’ all-time leader in points (275), goals (123), assists (152), and games played (337).

One of just three players (Michal Jordan and Rasmus Rissanen) to play in all six of Charlotte’s AHL seasons, Boychuk, the Hurricanes’ first round pick (14th overall) in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft, ranked tied for fifth on the Checkers in scoring with 25 points (9g, 16a) in 56 games played this season.

Despite the exchange of players at the AHL level, the NHL affiliation of each did not change as Miller would remain within the Edmonton Oilers organization and Boychuk remained with the Hurricanes.

Later in the day, the Checkers announced the acquisition of center Blair Jones on loan from the Utica Comets while loaning back center T.J. Hensick to Utica.

In a related transaction, the Comets’ parent club, the Vancouver Canucks, also dealt forward Dane Fox to Carolina in exchange for future considerations.

The Hurricanes correspondingly assigned Fox to Charlotte.

Jones, a 29-year-old veteran of 10 professional seasons, has recorded 287 points (112g, 175a) and 41 penalty minutes in 453 career AHL games with Springfield, Norfolk, Abbotsford, Lehigh Valley and Utica.

The six-foot-three-inch, 215-pound drawman has twice eclipsed the 50-point mark in the AHL, including a career-high 55 points in 56 games in 2010-11 with Norfolk.

This season, Jones, a fourth-round NHL draft pick in 2005 who has 132 games of NHL experience with Tampa Bay, Calgary and Philadelphia, has 15 points in 36 games with the Comets.

Fox, 22, is in his second professional season, spending the majority of the year with the Kalamazoo Wings of the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL).

He led all Kalamazoo skaters in goals (26), points (50) and penalty minutes (87), appearing in 53 games this season.

Fox (6 feet, 185 pounds) ranked second among Wings players in goals (30) and penalty minutes (110) during his rookie season with Kalamazoo in 2014-15.

He signed with Vancouver as an undrafted free agent during his final season of junior hockey with the Erie Otters in 2013-14, and led the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) in goals that season, finding the net 64 times and totaling 107 points in 67 games played.

Hensick, 30, concluded his first and only season with the Checkers with 25 points (7g, 18a) in 46 games.