Colorado Avalanche: News from around the NHL August 25th, 2014

Winchester helped out with the Colts training camp.

No matter what's going on in Jesse Winchester's pro hockey career, there is always this constant: he enjoys skating at the civic complex late each summer, helping out his former junior team, the Jr. A Colts.

Whether he's looking to perhaps play overseas as he did in 2012, about to head to Florida as he did in 2013 or preparing for the Colorado Avalanche camp this year, Winchester devotes a lot of his time to helping out Ian MacInnis' team.

It is much appreciated, by MacInnis and the Colts.

Mercier signs an ECHL contract.

The Toledo Walleye announced that they have agreed to terms with forward Justin Mercier for the 2014-15 season.

Mercier split last season between Idaho in the ECHL and Iowa and Bridgeport of the AHL. As captain of the Steelheads, Mercier posted a career best 30 points (18g-12a) in 43 contests while adding five points (2g-3a) in 19 combined AHL games. The veteran forward has skated in 239 career games in the American Hockey League, posting 81 points (41g-40a) in stops with Lake Erie, Iowa and Bridgeport. A sixth-round selection (168th ovearll) of the Colorado Avalanche in the 2005 NHL Entry Draft, Mercier appeared in nine games with Colorado during the 2009-10 season and scored his first NHL goal on Feb. 4, 2010 in a 5-3 loss to Nashville.

Lieweke regrets mentioning parades.

As he begins to wind down his tenure as chief executive of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, Tim Leiweke concedes one regret: “I shouldn’t have said ‘parades.'”

He said it more than once after he was named head of the company that owns the Toronto Maple Leafs, the NHL team that has not staged a Stanley Cup parade since 1967. It is a bit of a sore spot, as he learned.

“I didn’t understand when I got here that it was the Montreal phrase for beating the crap out of Leafs fans,” he said with a smile on Friday.

A day earlier, it was announced that Leiweke had already entered his final year on the job in Toronto. He will be leaving no later than next June, or only about two years after he landed in town on a series of bold proclamations.

Ekblad says he no longer feels the effects of the concussion.

Aaron Ekblad is getting back to work.

The first overall draft pick of the Florida Panthers said on Saturday he’s free of any concussion-like symptoms less than three weeks after he took a hard hit in a world junior exhibition game.

“The concussion is perfectly, completely gone. I feel great,” said Ekblad. “I’ve been skating all this week, working out all this week. It’s gone. I feel great.”

Toews took on the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge... while wakeboarding!