Alexandre Bolduc rejoining Moose

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This article was published 08/02/2011 (5586 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — The Vancouver Canucks have assigned often-injured centre Alexandre Bolduc to the Manitoba Moose.

Bolduc, who has just returned to practice after another shoulder injury, is presumably joining the team Wednesday or Thursday when it arrives home from the current four-game road trip that wraps up tonight in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

The Moose play at home Friday against San Antonio.

Bolduc has played two games for the AHL team so far this season, after a previous injury rehabilitation. He has suited up for 19 contests for the Canucks and has one goal and three points.

The 25-year-old from Montreal will bolster the Manitoba centre slot, which is very thin at the moment due to injuries to Joel Perrault and Marco Rosa and Cody Hodgson’s recall to Vancouver.

And earlier today Manitoba Moose coach Claude Noel decided this morning was the time to again intensify his prodding of talented forward Sergei Shirokov.

The second-year Russian has made a lot of progress this season.

Last month he broke the franchise’s record for consecutive games with a point and when that 12-game streak was reached, he was summoned to the Vancouver Canucks and scored his first NHL goal.

Since Shirokov’s return, though, it’s been nearly all goose-eggs, just one assist in the those six games.

Shirokov still leads in the Moose in scoring with 34 points, but a hot Bill Sweatt has forged into a tie with him at that number.

“I just want to get him untracked,” Noel said about his chat with Shirokov after this morning’s game-day skate. The Moose wrap up their four-game road trip to Pennsylvania (2-1 so far) with a game here against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins (6 p.m.). “He’s waiting for things to happen without making things happen. I think you have to get involved to make things happen.

“When he was going real good there, he was very involved everywhere, with the puck, without the puck, and the more work he did without it, the more he got it back.”

The Moose will again go with seven defencemen tonight, but one of them will not be rookie Kevin Connauton, who has 10 goals, the most of any rookie defenceman in the AHL.

Connauton has the flu.

One of the defencemen will be NHL veteran Sami Salo, who will finish his three-game conditioning stint after rehabilitating a Achilles tendon torn last summer.

Salo had two goals here in Manitoba’s win last Friday.

The Moose, with 62 points, lead the AHL’s North Division.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca