ECHL Toledo Walleye

Storm re-sign five and add two

July 1, 2004 - ECHL (ECHL)
Toledo Walleye News Release


Toledo, OH- The Toledo Storm of the ECHL announced today that they have resigned defensemen Jason Jozsa, Danny Eberly, Bryce Charpentier, Craig Olynick, and forward John Longo. Toledo also signed defenseman Dan Rohanna and forward Maris Ziedins to contracts. Bios of the signed players will follow this release on page 2.

Head Coach and Director of Player Personal Nick Vitucci discussed the signings, "I really liked these guys last season and I am happy that they are coming back. They all have a year of professional experience now and I expect them to perform at a higher level in the coming campaign. Rohanna and Ziedins I expect will add depth for us."

Acquired from Greenville during training camp, Jozsa appeared in 67 games for Toledo in 2003-04. He finished his rookie season with 2 goals and 15 assists. Bryce Charpentier played in 26 Storm contests since his arrival on January 30th. While with Toledo, Bryce collected 150 penalty minutes and 4 assists. Danny Eberly and John Longo came to Toledo via Atlantic City on March 5th. In 13 games with Toledo, Longo posted 2 goals and 2 assists. Eberly appeared in 10 contests with 1 assist and no penalty minutes. Finally, Craig Olynick, acquired on March 16, had 2 goals and 1 assist in 9 games for Toledo. Rohanna saw his first pro experience at the end of 2003-04 when he landed on the Fort Worth of the Central Hockey League. Dan collected two penalty minutes in eight games with the Brahmas. Ziedins spent last season with Rockford of the United Hockey League. Maris had 35 points (13-22) in the 73 games he appeared in. Recently signed Reggie Savage was a teammate of Ziedins on that squad.

Nick Vitucci also announced today that he has made qualifying offers to forwards Jim Abbott, and Derek Campbell, along with goaltender Cory Campbell. Those are in addition to the offers made to Sam Paolini, Kam White, Pierre-Luc Sleigher, P.J. Martin, and Jim Vickers who were acquired by Toledo on June 4, 2004.

Here is a description of the qualifying process. Each team was entitled to reserve rights to a maximum of eight qualified players. Of the eight qualified players, no more than four could be veterans (288 regular season professional hockey games played as of the start of the upcoming 2004-05 season). Players on open qualifying offers cannot be traded. The qualifying offer must remain open for acceptance until August 1, at which time the qualifying offer becomes null and void and the team may sign the qualified player to any salary or may elect to take no further action. Teams that extend a valid qualifying offer to a non-veteran player shall retain the rights to that qualified player for one playing season.

A team that extends a valid qualifying offer to a veteran player will retain the rights to that veteran until August 1. After August 1, if the veteran player is not signed to a contract by the team, the veteran shall be deemed a restricted free agent and shall be entitled to seek and secure offers of employment from other ECHL teams. Restricted free agents may not be traded. When a restricted free agent receives a contract offer from a team other than the team with the player's rights and the restricted free agent wishes to accept the contract offer, the restricted free agent and the offering member must, within 24 hours, notify the ECHL, the team with the player's rights and the Professional Hockey Players' Association. The member with the player's rights shall have seven days after the date it is notified to exercise its right to match the contract offer. If a restricted free agent is not signed to either an offer sheet or a contract by an ECHL team by August 31, the player shall be deemed an unrestricted free agent.

Check out the Toledo Walleye Statistics



ECHL Stories from July 1, 2004


The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

OurSports Central