HARTFORD, March 11, 2020: Hartford Wolf Pack general manager Chris Drury announced today that the parent New York Ranges have reassigned forward Jake Elmer to the Wolf Pack from its ECHL affiliate, the Maine Mariners, and that the Wolf Pack has signed forward Conner Bleackley to a Professional Tryout (PTO) agreement.
Elmer has skated in two games with the Wolf Pack on the season, going scoreless with one minor penalty. The rookie out of the Western Hockey League, who was signed as a free agent by the Rangers March 15, 2019, has registered 12 goals and 11 assists for 23 points in 36 games with Maine, while serving 43 minutes in penalties. He ranks fourth on the Mariner team in goals.
Bleackley, a fourth-year pro out of the Western Hockey League, has seen action in ten AHL games this year with the Texas Stars, notching three goals and two assists for five points, along with six penalty minutes and a +1. In 15 ECHL games with Maine, the 6-0, 199-pound High River, Alberta native has five goals and five assists for ten points, plus 14 PIM, after having registered four goals and nine assists for 13 points, along with four PIM, in 18 games with the Idaho Steelheads.
Bleackley, 24, spent last year with the San Antonio Rampage of the AHL, skating in 57 games and chipping in five goals and 11 assists for 16 points and posting 35 penalty minutes. He was a first-round pick (23rd overall) by the Colorado Avalanche in 2014 and then re-entered the draft two years later, and was selected in the fifth round (144th overall) in 2016 by St. Louis.
Prior to turning pro, Bleackley played 259 games over five seasons with the Red Deer Rebels of the WHL, amassing career totals of 80 goals and 103 assists for 183 points, plus 180 penalty minutes.