As the Iowa Heartlanders prepare to travel to Wichita for two games with the Wichita Thunder, the team has announced that rookie forward Evan Boucher will be joining them in exchange for future considerations.
Boucher, like Will Calverley, is a left-handed left winger and center native to Ontario, Canada, who the Heartlanders acquired from Florida. Also, like Calverley, Boucher has played fewer than 10 professional regular season games before heading to the Heartland. With Will’s injury likely meaning he will not return to the ice for the remainder of the season, Boucher is a natural fit to continue where Calverley left off.
While Boucher has no relation to the 2022 former Heartlander Matthew Boucher, his older brother Andrew is an assistant coach for the Canadian Youth team. Evan has played this season for the University of Ottawa and the Bytown Royals before making his way to Florida. His combined numbers for this season are 23 games, six goals, and 10 assists. However, Boucher is looking to emulate his previous two seasons, where he had a combined 119 points in 121 games for the Brockville Braves and Halifax Mooseheads. He had fewer penalty minutes in either year than he had this year.
Here is just an example of what he is capable of:
Evan Boucher will have a new number in Iowa. He will wear #20, as his #13 he wore in Florida is taken by Max Johnson, who wears the #13 he boasted for the Everblades.
Boucher, Johnson, and the recently re-activated Hunter Jones will lead Iowa into Kansas for Friday and Saturday 7 pm matchups, but the team will be without Pavel Novak, who is returning from his loan to the Iowa Wild.
The Heartlanders will be home on March 13th, 15th, and 16th for the end of their season series with the Wheeling Nailers. Pending Kelly Cup Playoff qualifications and offseason division realignment for expansion, this may also be the end of their divisional rivalry.
March 13th and 15th’s games will drop the puck at 6:35 pm, while Saturday the 16th will feature a Kelly Cup appearance and St. Hat Trick’s Day, featuring a giveaway of the highly sought-after typo bobbleheads for that game, which misspells the team name as the “Hearltanders”. That game will begin at 6:05 CDT
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