Chirps from Center Ice

NHL teams sent the calvary to their AHL clubs this afternoon on the eve of the NHL lockout. Here’s the TSN list of today’s send downs.

Pittsburgh waived Dylan Reese, Philippe Dupuis, Trevor Smith, Alex Grant, Warren Peters, Riley Holzapfel and Benn Ferriero.

Expected to sign AHL deals to Wilkes-Barre / Scranton are Eric Tangradi, Brian Strait, Robert Bortuzzo, Jeff Zatkoff and Brad Thiessen.

The AHL announced a rule today that you had to be on last years Clear Day list in order to be sent to your AHL club. All the above names I just mentioned are on the list so there will be no issues.

Here’s Jonathan Bombulie’s take on the proceedings today. Note the depth chart. Carl Sneep on the 5th D pair? Joey Mormina on the 6th? That’s some depth.

Edit: I keep forgetting that Tom Venesky from The Times-Leader has a blog. Here’s his entry from yesterday. His note about the uncertainty of Keven Veilleux is disconcerting.

Turning my attention south, Washington sent 21 guys to Hershey. Biggest name on that list in my mind is one Braden Holtby. He makes the Bears a heck of a lot better than they were (as if they weren’t already good to begin with).

Without a lockout, the AHL maybe has 8 or 10 teams which are truly elite. With a lockout, that number bloats to 12-15. The Penguins in my mind are without a doubt on that first list, but they just received a ton of company this afternoon.

In other news…

–> Here’s a couple of articles on what a lockout will do for the AHL.

–> My blog pals PensFans4Ever had a great interview with Joe Ernst, who is the Vice President of Hockey Operations for the ECHL.

–> I played radio with my good friend Bob Howard from the Power Play Post Show. I’m about forty minutes in. If you can, listen to the whole thing. Bob puts a ton of work into his show and I really appreciate him having me on again this year.

Have a great weekend.