Chirps from Center Ice

News of the day is that Tom Kostopoulos, a day after being signed by the Pittsburgh Penguins, was claimed off of waivers this afternoon by the New Jersey Devils.

I am sure Jonathan will have more on the Penguins Insider later, but here are some quotes from Kostopoulos from JB’s twitter feed earlier:

“One side of me is a bit torn because I was excited to be part of Pittsburgh’s organization and to come back here and play in Wilkes-Barre, but I’m definitely excited to go to New Jersey.”

Sometimes I hate the business of hockey. Before Kostopoulos came to Wilkes-Barre for his second tour of duty, he could have signed on with any of the 30 NHL teams, New Jersey being one of them. When he was with Wilkes-Barre on a PTO, he could have still signed with any of the 30 NHL teams. I don’t know, it seems a little underhanded to me that New Jersey would wait for Kostopoulos to sign with an NHL team (Pittsburgh) and claim him off of waivers from the Penguins to have as their own.

Anyway, the immediate effect of the Kostopoulos loss is lessened by the fact that Paul Thompson is back practicing in contact and could play as early as this weekend.

Thinking more long term, I believe that Pittsburgh is going to be more active between now and trade deadline day for the farm team, having lost Kostopoulos and Brian Strait to waiver claims. The NHL deadline this year is April 3, the AHL’s is April 10. Time will tell.

If you haven’t yet, check out the Third Quarter Grades.

But for more news like this, the next blog update will be Friday for the Gameday setup vs. Providence.

Let’s Go Pens!