Chirps from Center Ice

Penguins prospect camp opens tomorrow in Pittsburgh. Here is a list of who was invited:

Forwards:

Josh Archibald
Jessey Astles
Beau Bennett
Stefan Fournier
Brian Gibbons
Jared Gomes
Tom Kuhnhackl
Nick Petersen*
Bryan Rust
Zack Sill*
Eric Tangradi*
Paul Thompson*
Dominik Uher
Keven Veilleux*
Scott Wilson
Scott Zurevinski

Defensemen:

Andrew Blazek
Nicholas D’Agostino
Simon Despres*
Alex Grant*
Scott Harrington
Reid McNeill
Joe Morrow
Joe Rogalski
Philip Samuelsson*

Goaltender:

Patrick Killeen*
Maxime Lagace
Rob Madore

I am not going to pretend to know something about all of these guys. I did add asterisks next to those you can expect to see in Wilkes-Barre at some point this season.

It’s a fish or cut bait season for Eric Tangradi. He either ends the season in the NHL with Pittsburgh, or is traded. Tomorrow is his first step. Same can be said for a guy like Keven Veilleux. He has to learn how to figure it out or else guys like Paul Thompson could jump ahead of him on the depth chart.

A guy I think is going to have a great camp is Nick Petersen. He did not look out of sorts in his 23 game apprenticeship with Wilkes-Barre last season.

If a kid like Simon Despres is as much as a pedigree as he has been hyped to be, then watch for him to have a big camp also.

Scott Stuccio will be at camp this week and will likely be proving updates throughout. I am going to keep an eye on it and it anything is recappable, I will run it here.