Chirps from Center Ice

A fan blog about the AHL's Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins

Monthly Archives: June 2011

Thursday Notes 6/30

Comments Off on Thursday Notes 6/30 Posted by on June 30, 2011

On the eve of the free agent frenzy, I decided to run just a few notes I have kept my eye on these past few days.  So here we go again in bullet format:

  • The Thomas Sabo Ice Tigers Nürnberg made the Chris Collins signing official on their website. It’s a very quick blurb.
  • The affiliations are all set for the AHL in 2011-2012. As we had it on Friday, you can see the listings here.
  • Michael Fornabaio from the Connecticut Post has a handy list of all restricted free agents not sent Qualifying Offers at his blog. Some NHL names whose time in the AHL is done and some high impact AHL tweeners who could make a big splash in a new city.
  • Playing off of the above list, Jonathan Bombulie fine tuned his free agent list and included those who did not receive qualifying offers.
  • Some news which can indirectly affect the Hershey Bears goaltending situation as it would appear from this tweet that Semyon Varlamov is off to the KHL. What this could mean is that Braden Holtby could be the back-up to start the season in Washington.
  • In keeping up with players to come through the WBS pipeline someday, defenseman Joe Rogalski was traded from the Sarnia Sting to the Soo Greyhounds. Jesse Marshall from Faceoff Factor tweeted me on what this means for Rogalski. Also, according to Seth Rorabaugh from Empty Netters, Tom Kuhnhackl is going to stick with his junior squad, the Windsor Spitfires, for another season.
Finally, the AHL gave its member teams six guaranteed dates this week. Wilkes-Barre has not yet announced their dates. But from what I have seen on the Twitter side from them they are looking to package the announcement on the dates with an announcement on Pensfest II. Stay tuned on that, as I will have something up here on that fairly soon, maybe as early as today.
The AHL, WBS

Tom Sabo Traps a Penguin

Comments Off on Tom Sabo Traps a Penguin Posted by on June 27, 2011

Reports out of Germany is that Chris Collins has indeed signed a contract to play in the DEL with the Thomas Sabo Ice Tigers Nürnberg for next season.

No fun with Babelfish for this one. The headline of this post is all me. Thomas Sabo is a local jeweler who bought the team from keeping it from going bankrupt.*

Best, most trusted source coming out confirming the transfer is the Augsburger Allgemeine, which is a major German regional daily newspaper published since 1945.** You can read the blurb about Collins here. (already translated to English, you are welcome)

Collins joins ex-WBS Penguin Captain Ryan Bayda and defenseman T.J. Kemp on the team next year.

Chirps from Center Ice wishes Chris Collins the best in his German endeavors.

* – source

** – source

WBS

Who is the New Guy?

Comments Off on Who is the New Guy? Posted by on June 26, 2011

The NHL Draft was this past weekend. I am no draft guru of any kind, so if you are looking for me to provide you with draft analysis on winners and losers you have come to the wrong place.

Anyway, the Pens drafted five guys this past weekend. Here, you can find info on all five in this one tidy blog post.

In the first round, the Pens went with defenseman Joe Morrow from the Portland Winterhawks out of the Western Hockey League. (WHL)

  • Pittsburgh had a nice Q & A with Morrow (in it’s Penguins Report, you have to scroll a bit to see it and it is not really a Pittsburgh interview, but rather a media scrum Q & A)
  • The draft experts over at Faceoff Factor have the scouting report on Morrow.
  • Bombulie with a blurb about the logic on taking a defensemen when it would appear the cupboard is stacked with depth and talent at the position.
In day two, the Pens selected another defenseman in Scott Harrington from the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League in round two. In round five they selected Dominik Uher, a center from the Spokane Chiefs from the WHL. In the sixth round they selected Josh Archibald, a high-schooler from Minnesota who plays left wing. In the seventh and final round the Pens selected Scott Wilson, a center from Georgetown out of the Ontario Junior Hockey League.
  • Here are capsules on those four from the Pens website.
  • Bombulie again, with blurbs on the four as well as a nice thumbnails on all five players drafted.

Whether or not the above five will ever be relevant in Wilkes-Barre remains to be seen. A lot can happen in between draft day and when the decision is made to sign these guys.

Meanwhile, on more pressing matters, the deadline for Restricted Free Agents to get qualifying offers is tomorrow at 5. Dustin Jeffrey, Joey Haddad, Brad Thiessen and Tyler Kennedy are Pittsburgh’s RFAs. Nothing official I have seen anywhere on these guys re-signing with Pittsburgh…yet. If these guys do not get offer sheets from Pittsburgh by 5 tomorrow they then become unrestricted free agents. If I were to guess the order of importance as to who gets offers is as follows. 1) Dustin Jeffrey, 2) Brad Thiessen, 3) Joey Haddad, 4) Tyler Kennedy.

We will see. Stay tuned.

Pittsburgh

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Comments Off on Ch-ch-ch-changes Posted by on June 24, 2011

Like that David Bowie song from the 70’s, the AHL landscape of affiliation swaps is a changin’.

I stayed tuned to the news today on the Twitter side, and it looks like everything is into place. Things can change, but I am cavalier enough and confident enough in whom I follow and whom they retweet to offer the following table:

AHL Team Old Parent Team New Parent Team
Rochester Americans Florida Panthers Buffalo Sabres
Portland Pirates Buffalo Sabres Phoenix Coyotes
Chicago Wolves Atlanta Thrashers* Vancouver Canucks
San Antonio Rampage Phoenix Coyotes Florida Panthers?**

* – The Thrashers moved to Winnipeg and will be named the Winnipeg Jets, who will affiliate with the new, yet to be named St. John’s, Newfoundland team.

** – Tampa Bay and Norfolk are not breaking up, and San Antonio and Florida are the last teams standing without affiliations, with all other teams currently spoken for.

The AHL

The Center of Defense

Comments Off on The Center of Defense Posted by on June 23, 2011

(Note: If this is your first visit to the blog today, read the news about Geoff Walker and Bryan Lerg first)

Keeping with my winger wish list from Tuesday and my backup goaltender wish list from yesterday, here is my wishlist for center and defense for the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins when the puck drops on the thirteenth season in October.

This is a scarce list. Reason being is that the Penguins are stacked with defensemen and centers already. You want to add to the already loaded corps if you are the Pens. So here goes presented in no particular order…

Centers:

Name Last Years Team Blurb
Jeff Taffe Rockford IceHogs The Ex-WBS Penguin would be welcome back with open arms after being on bad teams (Rochester / Rockford) prior to his last stint here.
Trent Whitfield Providence Bruins Believe it or not, but Wilkes-Barre made a large push at the trade deadline to acquire Whitfield. Now it has all summer…
John Zeiler Manchester Monarchs He’s from Pittsburgh, has NHL experience and played with Geoff Walker in ManchVegas. Why not?
Greg Rallo Texas Stars Had 26 goals last year at center for the Stars. No center in Wilkes-Barre had more than 19 (Ryan Craig)

Defensemen:

Name Last Years Team Blurb
Corey Potter WBS Penguins The thought here is he returns if he doesn’t get a better offer from some other team.
Troy Milam Norfolk Admirals Offensive defenseman. Led all Admirals in goals against Wilkes-Barre last year.
Nathan Paetsch Manitoba Moose Can play up front or in back. Could he be a power play quarterback? NHL experience too which can come in handy if PIT’s D corps gets depleted.
Shawn Belle OKC / Lake Erie Physical hulk of a defenseman whom, despite never seeing him play in person, I have always been intrigued by.

Again, these names were picked off of the Jonathan Bombulie list of the top AHL free agents. I’m playing the lottery if Wilkes-Barre nabs one of the above guys by the way.

The AHL, WBS

A Walking Case of Lerg

Comments Off on A Walking Case of Lerg Posted by on June 23, 2011

Great way to start a Thursday morning as the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins announced today that both Geoff Walker and Bryan Lerg are returning for the 2011-2012 season.

Both were signed to one year, AHL only deals.

Walker is a plugger, gritty power forward-esque type player who can fight and score goals. He is your prototypical AHLer, one who will score big goals and stand up for his teammates.

Lerg came from obscurity to legit scoring threat. He will most be remembered for this performance in March of this year:

Welcome back, gentlemen.

Let’s Go Pens!

video credit: WBS Penguins YouTube

WBS

Backing up Brad

2 Comments Posted by on June 22, 2011

Keeping with yesterday, I present you my wish list for a backup goaltender based off of the AHL free agent list Jonathan Bombulie presented yesterday. As we all know, John Curry is off to Germany. Mattias Modig and Patrick Killeen are not, in my opinion, ready for the AHL backup role yet. So Wilkes-Barre is in the buyers market for a dependable backup.

Thiessen’s backup is expected to see 15-20 games next year in my opinion. Pittsburgh is molding Thiessen into Marc-Andre Fleury’s backup for 2012-2013, so they want Thiessen to see the lion share of work in net this upcoming season. This is because of the schedule reduction in the AHL from 80 games to 76 and the elimination of three games in three nights. If you are a goaltender under the age of 25, you aren’t signing on with WBS to sit behind reigning AHL goaltender of the year Brad Thiessen. So anyone 25 or younger was eliminated.

So here is my wish list, presented in no particular order:

Name Age 10-11 Stats Blurb
Joey MacDonald, GR 30 20 GP, 10-9-1 2.78 GAA, 0.894 SV% Put up halfway decent numbers for a mediocre Grand Rapids team. What would have his numbers looked like if he was with us last year?
Barry Brust, BNG 27 52 GP, 29-19-2, 2.53 GAA, 0.925 SV% Was really brought in last season to play backup, but due to injuries and such ended up being the B-Sens number one.
Tyler Weiman, MTB 27 29 GP, 15-10-2, 2.26 GAA, 0.909 SV% Backed up All-Star Eddie Lack last year. If I was forced to choose who on this list I want the most, Weiman is it
Nathan Lawson, BRI 27 16 GP, 6-5-4, 2.90 GAA, 0.913 SV% Was on a goaltending merry-go-round in Bridgeport and I think if memory serves was dinged up a bit. Would probably be my last option, but JB had him #43 on his list.
Matt Climie, SA 28 55 GP, 26-22-3, 2.64 GAA, 0.913 SV% Not bad numbers considering the team in front of him finished seventh in the West Division this year.
Hannu Toivenen, RFD 27 49 GP, 21-16-4, 2.90 GAA, 0.907 SV% Split time with Alec Richards in net on a bad IceHogs team last year. Fits the “backup goaltender” role to a tee in my opinion.
Jason Bacashihua, LE 28 42 GP, 23-16-3, 2.29 GAA, 0.917 SV% Was Lake Erie’s number one last year on a team that took the Moose to seven games in the playoffs this year.

My guess is that Wilkes-Barre nabs one of these guys. All the other names on the Bombulie list either don’t fit the criteria, will most probably get offers overseas or as backup with an NHL team, bad news or too old in my opinion to be included on this list.

Tomorrow I will finish off the list by splitting up centers and defensemen.

The AHL, WBS

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