{"id":159915,"date":"2025-08-20T02:03:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T02:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/159915\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T02:03:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T02:03:08","slug":"evening-notes-gillies-oconnor-nardella","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/159915\/","title":{"rendered":"Evening Notes: Gillies, O&#8217;Connor, Nardella"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A former third-string option at the NHL level enjoyed his time in the ECHL so much last season that he wants another go at it. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/orlandosolarbearshockey.com\/news\/2025\/08\/solar-bears-re-sign-veteran-goaltender-jon-gillies\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">According to a team announcement<\/a>, the ECHL\u2019s Orlando Solar Bears have signed netminder<strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/gillijo01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-19_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Jon Gillies<\/a> <\/strong>for the 2025-26 campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Despite being in the professional ranks for the last decade, Gillies is best known for his work at the collegiate level. Putting together an impressive season with the NCAA\u2019s Providence College, Gillies managed a 24-13-2 record in 39 games with a .930 SV%, 2.01 GAA, and four shutouts during the 2014-15 season. Gillies played so well behind the Friars that they were able to win the first National Championship in program history.<\/p>\n<p>He put together a few good years with the AHL\u2019s Stockton Heat, but couldn\u2019t replicate the success he had in college. From 2015 to 2023, Gillies managed a 78-71-32 record in 184 appearances with a .904 SV% and 2.94 GAA with the Calgary Flames, New Jersey Devils, St. Louis Blues, Arizona Coyotes, and Columbus Blue Jackets organizations. He played in seven games for the Solar Bears last season.<\/p>\n<p>Other notes from this evening:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Colorado Avalanche are getting some good news from one of their better bottom-six players. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/DNVR_Avalanche\/status\/1957904543578050668\" rel=\"nofollow\">According to AJ Haefele of the DNVR Avalanche podcast<\/a>, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/o\/oconnlo01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-08-19_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Logan O\u2019Connor<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s recovery from surgery is going ahead of schedule. He posits that O\u2019Connor should only miss between 10 and 16 games, which would forecast his return to early November, nearly a month earlier than expected.<\/li>\n<li>The AHL\u2019s Manitoba Moose are adding some veteran experience to their coaching staff for the upcoming season. Earlier today, the team <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/moosehockey.com\/news\/nardella-hired-2025\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">announced<\/a> that they\u2019ve hired <strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eliteprospects.com\/staff\/13654\/bob-nardella\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Bob Nardella<\/a><\/strong> as an assistant coach for the 2025-26 AHL season. Nardella has spent more than a decade with the AHL\u2019s Chicago Wolves, moving from the team\u2019s skills coach to the assistant coach before serving as the head coach last year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former third-string option at the NHL level enjoyed his time in the ECHL so much last season&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":159916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[10490,2995,8666,92731,92732,293,62,3106,67,132,68,292],"class_list":{"0":"post-159915","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ahl","9":"tag-colorado-avalanche","10":"tag-echl","11":"tag-jon-gillies","12":"tag-logan-oconnor","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-tampa-bay-lightning","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-winnipeg-jets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115058639520295074","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}