ProHawks: Miele named Olympic captain

Miami’s only Hobey Baker winner, Andy Miele, is captaining the U.S. Olympic men’s hockey team in the Beijing Games.

Miele, 33, wrapped up his second regular season in KHL Nizhny with 36 points, third-best on the team on 13 goals and 23 assists.

The 2011 RedHawks graduate has played 15 NHL games, all with the Phoenix Coyotes from 2011 to 2014, and he has two career helpers.

Miele has 424 AHL points in seven seasons.

With Miami, Miele played on both Frozen Four teams and won college hockey’s top individual prize a season later in 2010-11 when he went 24-47-71.

Despite joining the RedHawks midway through his freshman season, he is seventh on Miami’s all-time points leaderboard with 160, including 60 goals.

NHL players are not participating in this year’s Olympics, largely because of rigorous and extensive COVID procedures.

Miele already was taken into protocol but tested negative and is expected to play right away.

An All-Star weekend look at former RedHawks currently playing professional hockey around the world:

NHL: Vegas forward Reilly Smith is once again blowing away the alumni field with a line of 12-18-30, with his 12 goals tying him for second on the team.

Earlier this season he became the second Miamian ever to notch 400 points in the NHL. Dan Boyle’s 605 points and 1,093 games played are top among all former RedHawks.

With 168 career goals, Smith is just 24 back of the MU alumni record of 192 held by Brian Savage, father of current forwards Ryan and Red Savage.

— Calgary forward Blake Coleman went 2-1-3 in a 4-2 win over Arizona on Feb. 2, assisting on the game-winner and netting the clincher, giving him 10 goals and eight assists on the season.

Coleman reached the 20-point mark for the fifth time in five full NHL seasons.

— Columbus center Sean Kuraly scored twice against the New York Rangers on Jan. 27, giving him eight goals on the season and tying a career high.

Kuraly, from the nearby suburb of Dublin, played his first five NHL seasons with Boston before signing with the Blue Jackets as a free agent last summer.

— Grant Hutton made his NHL debut, logging his first five NHL games with the New York Islanders, but he was sent back to Bridgeport in December.

— Austin Czarnik was picked up off waivers by expansion Seattle this week after going 2-3-5 in 11 games as Hutton’s teammate for the Islanders.

— Riley Barber was recalled to the NHL for the first time since 2019-20, and he logged his first two games as a Red Wing last week.

— Carson Meyer was called up by Columbus this week, and the right wing hopes to make his NHL debut soon.

AHL: Proving again stats are stranger than fiction, Kiefer Sherwood is somehow tied for 21^st in the league in both goals (15) and points (34) with the Colorado Eagles.

Plus he leads the AHL in shots on goal with 140, all despite playing 11 games with the NHL Avalanche.

Sherwood has 49 career goals in 106 games in this league.

— Forward Anthony Louis scored three goals last week to take Texas’ lead in points with 24. Who did he move ahead of? Curtis McKenzie.

Josh Melnick is also on that Stars team and has six goals, six assists and a plus-2 rating.

ECHL: Justin Vaive is one point short of the 200 mark for his ECHL career.

Vaive, in his seventh season with Cincinnati, has 113 goals and 86 assists in his 11-season career in the league.

— Gordie Green is thriving in his first full ECHL season, netting nine goals and picking up 18 assists in 31 games with Newfoundland.

He also earned a one-game call-up to AHL Toronto.

Europe: Leksands center Carter Camper reached the 30-point mark for the 11th straight pro season.

Camper, who has eight goals and 22 assists in 32 games with the Swedish Elite League team, is teammates with Matthew Caito, who is tied for the team lead in defenseman points with 19 and leads all Leksands blueliners with 17 helpers.

— Defenseman Vincent LoVerde, in his first season outside North America after eight seasons in the AHL and two more in the ECHL, is 2-11-13 with Salzburg of the Austrian League.

— Blueliner River Rymsha has five goals and 18 assists for 23 points, tops among defensemen on his Poprad team in the Slovakian League.

Here are the stats for Miamians playing pro hockey around the world:

2021-22 PRO STATS
Skaters
NHL	Team	Pos.	GP	G	A	Pts.	PIM	+ / –
Reilly Smith	Las Vegas	F	44	12	18	30	6	2
Blake Coleman	Calgary	F	41	10	8	18	33	5
Jack Roslovic	Columbus	F	42	7	11	18	2	-7
Sean Kuraly	Columbus	F	43	8	8	16	23	7
Chris Wideman	Montréal	D	31	2	8	10	34	-15
Andy Greene	NY Islanders	D	35	1	5	6	2	-6
Austin Czarnik	Seattle	F	11	2	3	5	0	5
Alec Martinez	Las Vegas	D	11	0	3	3	4	3
Kiefer Sherwood	Colorado*	F	11	1	1	2	0	3
Grant Hutton	NY Islanders*	D	5	0	0	0	0	-1
Riley Barber	Detroit	F	2	0	0	0	0	1
Totals			276	43	65	108	104	-3
AHL	Team	Pos.	GP	G	A	Pts.	PIM	+ / –
Kiefer Sherwood	Colorado	F	29	15	19	34	22	4
Anthony Louis	Texas	F	30	12	12	24	10	-2
Curtis McKenzie	Texas	F	34	9	13	22	63	-11
Riley Barber	Grand Rapids*	F	23	8	11	19	14	-9
Austin Czarnik	Bridgeport*	F	20	6	9	15	6	-5
Louie Belpedio	Laval	D	32	5	9	14	51	-4
Cameron Schilling	Abbotsford*	D	19	1	12	13	16	5
Josh Melnick	Texas	F	30	6	6	12	4	2
Carson Meyer	Cleveland	F	32	8	3	11	41	-2
Grant Hutton	Bridgeport	D	28	5	6	11	6	-9
Gordie Green	Toronto	F	1	0	0	0	0	0
ECHL	Team	Pos.	GP	G	A	Pts.	PIM	+ / –
Justin Vaive	Cincinnati	F	41	13	14	27	82	3
Gordie Green	Newfoundland	F	30	8	17	25	2	8
Karch Bachman	Greenville*	F	2	1	0	1	0	0
Europe	Team	Pos.	GP	G	A	Pts.	PIM	+ / –
Andy Miele	Nizhny	F	47	13	23	36	33	6
Carter Camper	Leksands	F	32	8	22	30	28	9
River Rymsha	Poprad	D	36	5	18	23	30	8
Matthew Caito	Leksands	D	33	2	17	19	22	11
Vincent LoVerde	Salzburg	D	38	2	11	13	10	18
Will Weber	Schwenningen	D	37	1	3	4	76	3
Cameron Schilling	Djurgardens	D	5	0	3	3	2	0