In this episode, recorded February 13th, 2022, Alex welcomes regular guest Patrick Williams to the podcast. Patrick covers the league for TheAHL.com, and has a regular column over at nhl.com. With Syracuse passing the halfway point of their season this month, the two start off by discussing the Crunch's recent rough patch. The Crunch has gone 3-6-1-0 in their most recent 10 games, and is currently on a three-game skid thanks to an unproductive trip to Laval. Alex and Patrick break down what's going on with the team and discuss what needs to be done to get back into playoff contention. They also discuss the season Syracuse captain Gabriel Dumont is having, who needs to start stepping it up (with a specific look at Alex Barre-Boulet), and analyze the recent trade of former Tampa Bay Lightning prospect Jimmy Huntington for forward Anthony Richard. They address the challenges of developing young professionals in this league, using Patrick Maroon's career path as a bit of a case study.
To end the episode, Alex asks Patrick about the slow but inevitable shift back to normalcy in team admittance policies (one Syracuse itself made this past week, with the removal of their COVID-19 vaccination requirement). The two talk about Patrick's most recent interview with AHL President Scott Howson, and ponder the league's most immediate future.
Syracuse Speaks is hosted on Anchor, but is distributed to many of the major podcast platforms including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Breaker, Overcast, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, Spotify, and Stitcher. The royalty-free music featured in this episode was by Purple Planet Music and Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License..
Thanks for listening!
