Chirps from Center Ice

This afternoon Sheldon Souray was loaned to the Hershey Bears. Just when you thought the weak spot for the Bears was going to be defense, BLAM! they get Souray on loan. Article from Bears beat guy Tim Leone here.

Lots of mixed feelings on this from just about everywhere. I think that any time you get someone who is a three-time NHL All-Star is certainly helps your cause. It just makes this coming Saturday night in Wilkes-Barre all the more interesting.

Home in Wilkes-Barre, plenty of news:

• Andrew Hutchinson and Ryan Craig both cleared waivers, per TSN’s Bob McKenzie.
• Bombulie reported today that Pascal Morency was cut and Keven Veilleux missed practice today due to injury. It’s minor. He should be back next week.
• Ryan Schnell was offered a contract.
• I completely whiffed yesterday in mentioning here that Bryan Lerg is in town on a tryout. I remember the name from last year in our games with the Springfield Falcons. He plays center, and goodness knows we need depth at this position.

Bombulie scribbled down line combinations during practice today. Nothing official, but certainly close to what you will see Saturday.

Sterling-Jeffrey-Johnson
Conner-Vitale-Wallace
Collins-Lerg-Walker
Schnell-Sill-Boulerice
Haddad-Street-Petersen

Wagner-Potter
Strait-Bortuzzo
Fata-Sneep
Peltier-DeSantis

If you are a goalie geek, the good people over at The Goalie Guild released the October Scouting Journal.

Apparently Eric Tangradi has been shipped to the Wheel and Patrick Killeen has been recalled from The Nail straight to The Show. These look to be paper transactions only, as they want to keep Tangradi and Killeen in town in case Arron Asham can’t play tomorrow and if Marc-Andre Fleury or Brent Johnson get food poisoning or something.

For what it is worth, and it is nothing official, I called the Coal Street offices today and spoke to my ticket representative Chris and inquired about the December 30 game v. Hershey in Pittsburgh. They (Pittsburgh) bought out the home date from us (Wilkes-Barre) so they (Pittsburgh) control the tickets for the event. Chris had nothing official but said there may be a pre-sale for Season Ticket Holders. Let me repeat that. He had nothing official. So please don’t take my word for it (or his for that matter.) I also inquired about the January 1 game v. Norfolk. He told me that WBS has pushed the AHL hard to get the date moved, but Springfield isn’t budging. That doesn’t make any sense, because you are taking away 400 people who could hypothetically be in Pittsburgh for the Winter Classic instead of in an AHL arena watching an AHL game.

More tomorrow right before the NHL season kicks off with Penguins / Flyers.