Division 4th North League 18th ECHL Home record 4-4-0-0 | Conference 11th Eastern 2011-12 record 6-9-0-0 Road record 2-5-0-0 | |
The 2011–12 Toledo Walleye season is the 19th season for the team since its founding in 1991 as the Toledo Storm in the ECHL and the team's 3rd season as the Walleye. The Walleye will attempt to qualify for the Kelly Cup playoffs for the first time since the 2009–10 ECHL season. The Walleye will enter their 19th season as the ECHL affiliate of the Chicago Blackhawks and Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League and the Grand Rapids Griffins and Rockford IceHogs of the American Hockey League. The Walleye opened their season at home against the expansion Chicago Express on October 15 and will conclude their regular season on March 31 in a home game against the Kalamazoo Wings.
Contents
Pre-season
On June 29, the Walleye extended their affiliation agreement with the Chicago Blackhawks and Chicago's AHL affiliate the Rockford IceHogs, the third consecutive year in which the three clubs would have a working affiliation agreement. Chicago extended the affiliation as the club was pleased with how head coach Nick Vitucci had developed some of Chicago's prospects, including Peter LeBlanc and Simon Danis-Pepin who contributed to the team during the 2010–11 season. On August 17, Toledo extended their affiliation agreement with the Detroit Red Wings and Detroit's AHL affiliate the Grand Rapids Griffins. Vitucci expects either Thomas McCollum or Jordan Pearce to be sent down to Toledo by Detroit be the Walleye's starting goaltender for the upcoming season, as well as Chicago and Detroit sending down five to six players each to start the season with Toledo.
On June 30, Toledo announced that the team had submitted qualifying offers to forwards Rick Cleaver, Tyler Doig, Mike Hedden, and Evan Rankin and defencemen Jason Lepine, Nick Duff, and Ryan Turek.
Within the first week and a half of the ECHL's free agent period, Toledo made their first two signings of the season, re-signing defenceman Kyle Page and right winger Kyle Rogers. On July 15, Toledo made their first free agent signing of the off-season, bringing in defenceman enforcer Matt Krug, who had spent most of the previous season with the Fort Wayne Komets of the Central Hockey League, while also playing short stints with the ECHL's Elmira Jackals and Gwinnett Gladiators. Almost a week later, on July 21, the Walleye brought in two free agents, forward Brian Matte, formerly of the Laredo Bucks of the CHL, and rookie defenceman Dale Warkentin who had spent the previous four seasons with the Opaskwayak Cree Nation Blizzard of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League. Two days later, Toledo signed their second amateur free agent, defenceman Phil Rauch. Rauch, a native of the Toledo suburb of Temperance, Michigan, had previously played for two of Toledo's junior hockey clubs, the Toledo Cherokee of the Central States Hockey League (2003–04) and the Toledo IceDiggers of the North American Hockey League (2004–05), before playing collegiate hockey under former Toledo Storm defenceman B.J. Adams at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York.
A seventh player signing and third player extension was announced at the beginning of August as the team brought back defenceman Scott Fletcher, who had led the team in penalty minutes the previous season, while also contributing two goals and twelve assists in 57 games.
Standings
After games on November 24, 2011.
* – Division leader
After games on November 24, 2011.