Chirps from Center Ice

At last night’s booster club meeting, the members were treated to an audience with Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins beat writer Jonathan Bombulie of the Citizens’ Voice.

JB gave the 85 members in attendance some insight to some stories he couldn’t run or hasn’t run yet either on his blog, his twitter feed or in print.

• After the Hershey game he spots Tim Wallace giving him the evil eye. “So,” Wallace said, “Big Upset, huh?” Apparently Wallace read what he wrote in the paper the day before on how no one was going to stop Hershey again this year.

• Often JB gets asked why he always picks Hershey. His thought process is at least for now, you are asking him to predict against a team that has won two titles.

• Asked who the front-runners are in the East Division this year, it’s WBS, Hershey and Charlotte in a three horse race. Norfolk / Bingo play dark horse / spoiler and Adirondack, Albany and Syracuse will be back markers. Once again, JB feels the East teams are way better than Atlantic teams.

• As indicated in his blog and in print, JB was furious with the Holtby flashy glove save Saturday. He asked Wallace about it and he said that it made him look like a great shooter.

• Bombulie gave us a layman’s explanation on the Tangradi to Wheeling transaction at the NHL roster deadline. It involves Jordan Staal’s long-term foot injury and the cap relief that goes with it. Pittsburgh needed to be as close as possible to salary cap as possible without going over. Calling up Patrick Killeen helped them accomplish that.

• Jonathan had thought about doing an opinion piece on Nick Johnson. He feels Johnson has not been given a fair shake. In Pittsburgh’s training camp, the Penguins put him on what was basically a sixth line to light a fire under him. Thing is with Nick, he is not the one to necessarily show that there has been a “fire” lit under him. Bombulie predicts that Juice will have a big year.

• There are serious efforts afoot to get Geoff Walker to meet radio 98.5 KRZ’s radio DJ Jumpin’ Jeff Walker.

• On the whole “Tee sin v. Thee sin” pronunciation debate. It is Tee Sin. This comes straight from the man holds the name, Pens goaltender Brad Thiessen. The way it is pronounced doesn’t matter to Brad. On a side note, he is not related to Tiffany Amber Thiessen.

• Best guys to deal with in the locker room were Ben Lovejoy and Brad Thiessen. Thiessen because he was a jounalism major and knows what the guys asking questions are looking for.

• Brett Sterling v. Lawrence Nycholat will blow up at some point. If you don’t know what I am talking about, Sterling (while playing for Chicago last year) boarded Nycholat (while skating for Manitoba) and was suspended four games. Nycholat was injured and missed a good chunk of last year because of it.

• Who the heck is Bryan Lerg? Bombulie will write about him. May do a Sunday feature. Lerg skated last year with the Springfield Falcons. They sucked last year so he goes to Finland. The team tells him that Signed Richard Park of who skated with the New York Islanders instead. Lerg knows John Hynes so he signed here. Will center the second line tonight because Ryan Craig will not play (consensus is that Craig has to get back into game shape) and we will get to see Nick Petersen tonight on the fourth line.

• On the return of Joey Mormina. Mormina’s he signed with in Germany folded. So he came back to the States. He is a left handed shot, and since we are lacking a southpaw on the blue line, he slots in nicely. He will not play tonight v. his old team.

That’s about all Bombulie had to say. He fielded questions. I asked how Hershey can be stopped, especially on the power play. He stated players need to be disciplined in staying in their box on the penalty kill. Also, on penalties, we absolutely cannot take any against this team. Keith Aucoin running the special teams unit with Sheldon Souray’s 105 mph bomb from the point spells disaster for opposing teams.

Check me out here later as the Gameday Preview for the Adirondack game later drops around dinnertime. Also, stay tuned tonight on my twitter feed for the tweet-by-tweet, so to speak (or tweet?)