Flanagan, Weninger Earn ECAC Hockey Monthly Awards; Flanagan Is National Player of the Month as Well

by: 

Tara Freeman

Former SLU assistant, now NBC commentator Pierre McGuire makes a point at practice

Nov. 1: St. Lawrence University's Kyle Flanagan and Matt Weninger have been named the ECAC Hockey Player of the Month and Goaltender of the Month respectively after helping the Saints to a 3-1-0 start to the season with all of the games on the road. Flanagan was also named the Hockey Commissioner's Association National Division I Player of the Month on Friday. Additionally, the Saints were treated to a guest appearance at Thursday's practice by former Saint assistant Pierre McGuire, a former NHL coach now a NBC broadcaster.

The 3-1-0 beginning is the best road start for a Saint season since 1998-99 and the best month of October since the 1999-2000 team went 4-0 in the first month of the season.

The awards mark the first time in the two-year history of the monthly awards that Saint players have been winners. Flanagan was ECAC Player of the Week in each of the two weeks the Saints played while Weninger earned ECAC Goaltender of the Week honors for 5-0, 5-1 wins at Maine in which he stopped 76 of 77 shots.Flanagan's National Player of the Month award is also a Saint program first.

Flanagan leads the nation in scoring with five goals and six assists through the first four games of the year and matched a career high for points in a game and set a career high for assists in a game with four in the 5-0 win over Maine. Flanagan has had multiple points in each of the first four games of the season and is off to the best start of his career.

Weninger, who has made 138 saves on 145 shots in the first four games of the season, won an October game for the first time in his career when he made 33 saves in a 4-3 overtime win at Western Michigan to start the season. While he lost 3-2 in game two of the Western series, he was nearly unbeatable at Maine with 66 saves and just one goal allowed in the two games. He has a 3-1-0 record and a 1.75 goals against average plus a .952 save percentage for the month of October.

McGuire Returns To Appleton

Nov. 1: Pierre McGuire, a commentator for NBC Sports and a writer for Sports Illustrated, was a guest coach at St. Lawrence University's men's hockey team practice on Thursday.

McGuire, who is in Canton as part of ceremonies honoring retired Saint head coach Joe Marsh, was and assistant coach for Marsh at SLU in 1988-89 and 1989-90. He went on to become a scout and assistant coach with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991 and 1992 and joined the Hartford Whalers in 1992 as assistant coach and was later assistant general manager. He was head coach for 67 games in the 1993-94 season for the Whalers. He was a pro scout and assistant for the Ottawa Senators from 1994 to 1996 and was head coach of the Baton Rouge Kingfish in the ECHL in 1996-97.

He began his broadcasting career in 1997-98 as a color commentator on Montreal Canadiens English-language broadcasts. He has also worked as hockey analyst on TSN and joined NBC in 2006. He left TSN to work full time for NBC Sports and NBC Sports Network in 2011, but continues to appear on TSN Radio.

McGuire usually works as an "Inside the Glass" reporter on NBC and has been seen broadcasting on skates for some of the televised outdoor NHL games.