Chirps from Center Ice

Slowly realizing that I am going to blogging up a team which plays in the highest level of professional hockey in North America this October. Due to the turmoil going on with the NHL lockout, a lot of forlorn hockey fans will be turning their eyes to the American Hockey League this fall. I’m hoping that those same fans of the Penguin variety bookmark this blog as I’ll be blogging up the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins all season long, NHL lockout or not.

Also, shout out to all of my other AHL fan bloggers for being the place to go for pro hockey this fall, barring an 11th hour Hail Mary by the NHL and NHLPA.

Anyway, gobs of talent headed to the AHL this fall. Here’s a list (basically for my own reference) of NHL send downs for every team in the AHL East Division. Please note that these lists do not include eligible players who are likely to sign AHL deals later this month. (i.e. for WBS, Eric Tangradi, Brad Thiessen, Steve MacIntyre)

Pittsburgh / Wilkes-Barre

Beau Bennett
Brian Gibbons
Tom Kuhnhackl
Jayson Megna
Adam Payerl
Zach Sill
Paul Thompson
Dominik Uher
Keven Veilleux
Philippe Dupuis
Benn Ferriero
Riley Holzapfel
Warren Peters
Trevor Smith
Simon Despres
Brian Dumoulin
Reid McNeill
Joe Morrow
Philip Samuelsson
Carl Sneep
Alex Grant
Dylan Reese
Patrick Killeen

Note: I expected all of these names to play in Wilkes-Barre at some point during this upcoming season sans lockout.

Washington / Hershey

Mike Carman
Stanislav Galiev
Garrett Mitchell
Danick Paquette
Mattias Sjogren
Matt Clackson
Zach Hamill
Ryan Potulny
Ryan Stoa
Brett Flemming
Tomas Kundratek
Dmitry Orlov
Cameron Schilling
Dustin Stevenson
Kevin Marshall
Patrick McNeill
Garrett Stafford
Brandon Anderson
Philipp Grubauer
Braden Holtby
Dany Sabourin

Note: Braden Holtby back with the Chocolate and White. Look for him and Dany Sabourin to tend the nets in Hershey with Brandon Anderson and Philipp Grubauer getting bounced down to ECHL Reading.

Tampa Bay / Syracuse

J.T. Brown
Cory Conacher
Brett Connolly
Danick Gauthier
Alex Hutchings
Tyler Johnson
Alex Killorn
Vladimir Namestnikov
Ondrej Palat
Richard Panik
J.T. Wyman
Mark Barberio
Radko Gudas
Dmitry Korobov
Charles Landry
Dan Milan
Riku Helenius
Pat Nagle
Dustin Tokarski

Note: Large core group of last years Norfolk team going to be running amuck in the Salt City.

Anaheim / Norfolk

Frederik Andersen
Igor Bobkov
Josh Brittain
Mat Clark
Marco Cousineau
Corey Elkins
Emerson Etem
Jordan Hendry
Peter Holland
Matt Kennedy
Ryan Lasch
Hampus Lindholm
Brandon McMillan
John Mitchell
Kyle Palmieri
Devante Smith-Pelly
Sami Vatanen
Chris Wagner

Note: Anaheim prospects were trending upward late last season in Norfolk. Look for that trend to continue on Hampton Roads this Fall.

Ottawa / Binghamton

Andre Benoit
Jared Cowen
Stephane Da Costa
Tyler Eckford
Eric Gryba
Nathan Lawson
Jakob Silfverberg
Mika Zibanejad

Note: This list is is shorter because Ottawa never announced who they were sending to Binghamton. Here’s a list of Binghamton’s training camp invitees.

—

Should be a fun first couple months of the season, with the eyes of the North American hockey world turned to the American Hockey League.