Chirps from Center Ice

You can’t win a Stanley Cup or a Calder Cup on July 1 or August 1. But signing the right guys on a day like today, the groundwork is laid for the path to potential championships.

For the Penguins, it was the signing of four new players and the return of another:

–> Goaltender Jeff Zatkoff. An AHL All-Star with the Manchester Monarchs this season who went 21-17-1 with a 0.920 SV% and a 2.49 GAA in 44 games splitting duties in net with Martin Jones. Zatkoff signed a two year contract. Here’s a tweet from The Goalie Guild:

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With the tandem of Thiessen-Zatkoff in net for Wilkes-Barre next season, Wilkes-Barre is looking stout in net.

–> Forward Riley Holzapfel. From Jonathan Bombulie:

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It was pointed out that Holzapfel had a career high in points with a career low in games played. Perhaps a bigger role played, ala Bryan Lerg from Springfield to Wilkes-Barre?

I asked Alex, who runs the Syracuse Crunch fan blog Chairman How’s Glorious Army, about Holzapfel. Here’s what she had to say:

As hard as Holzapfel’s name is to say and spell is exactly how hard he works. He was exciting to watch, helped to pump up listless forwards. He was a pleasure for media guys to talk to, and just seemed to enjoy playing the game. You also got the feeling that his head was in the business–there was no sign of any real allegiance to STJ, even though they were a better team when we got him. He should have been (upset) — went from the top to the bottom, basically — but he never once showed any negativity…I was floored when ANA didn’t qualify him. He should be a quality grab!

–> Defenseman Dylan Reese. Number 59 on Jonathan Bombulie’s big board of AHL Free Agents. Played with the Islanders / Sound Tigers last year. A local Pittsburgh product. Really good defenseman and someone who could be the number one call up on defense next year for the Penguins if need be.

–> Steve MacIntyre returns for another year. Hopefully, Hershey’s Joel Rechlicz and he see the same ice together at some point and trip the light fantastic.

–> Center Warren Peters. More from Jonathan:

Bombulie also had this to say regarding the Peters signing, perhaps reading the tea leaves:

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Whew. What a day.

Analysis: Nice pickups by the Pens today for the AHL farm team. By no means does this guarantee anything Calder Cup-wise, so you won’t see me getting my hopes up like I did two years ago when Pittsburgh brought in Brett Sterling. I am not going to tell you how to be a fan, but planning a Calder Cup route in Wilkes-Barre is just premature thinking.

Elsewhere: Pretty quiet day for the rest of the AHL’s East Division. André Benoit is returning to Ottawa / Binghamton. Hershey is eerily quiet. Norfolk / Syracuse were quiet also.

Alumni watch: Ben Street signs with Calgary. From Paul Thompson’s twitter feed, it looks like Brandon DeFazio is off to the New York Islanders. DeFazio, not to be outdone, tweeted congratulations to Bryan Lerg for signing possibly with the Colorado Avalanche.

Of note, neither DeFazio or Lerg signing were made official as of 9 pm Wilkes-Barre time.

Day Two is always the better day in terms of signings that help AHL clubs. Twitter is where you will find reactions from me on the latest and Facebook on analysis, if there is any to be had, over the 140 character limit on Twitter. Then a blog post right here later in the day recapping the days events.