Chirps from Center Ice

When they say, “get your scorecards here” they’ll mean it, especially at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza.

More moves you can shake a stick at today for the Penguins. Here they are….

– They sign Mike Carman to a standard AHL Player Contract for the remainder of the season. Carman had a goal for the Pens Saturday in Hershey, against his old team.

– They send Dustin Stevenson to Wheeling.

– They call up from Wheeling F Anton Zlobin and D Harrison Ruopp.

– They sign C.J. Severyn to a PTO.

Oh, here’s the press release.

Jeepers! Where to start!?!

Let’s get the easy stuff out of the way first. Rotating Ruopp and Stevenson is just Coal Street’s way of seeing what they have depth wise and how Ruopp can handle bigger, faster, better competition. For what it’s worth, I liked Dustin Stevenson’s game and didn’t have a complaint about his play at all.

The Pens are adding two forwards in the addition of Severyn and Zlobin. This leads me to believe the following: 1) they want insurance for the St. John’s trip this weekend, 2) it means Pittsburgh isn’t sending back a forward anytime soon. My initial thought on who is Andrew Ebbett. Ebbett played more games in the NHL last year for Vancouver than he did in the AHL for the Canucks’ affiliate at the time, the Chicago Wolves. Or, 3) The diagnoses on Forwards Nick Drazenovic and/or Dominik Uher are more on the side of long term. Update: I was partially right. Jonathan reports today that Nick Drazenovic is out “indefinitely” – not good.

For Severyn, he was in camp with Wilkes-Barre this fall and must have left an impression. He’s 6-11-17, +3 in 19 games for the Orlando Solar Bears of the ECHL, he leads the Solar Bears in scoring and is 19th overall in the ECHL in points.

Boy, talk about a change of scenery for a guy like Severyn. The sunny skies and 70 to 80 degree weather of Orlando, Florida to the overcast and rain forecasted for St. John’s, Newfoundland this week.

Anyway, my Week 9 AHL Power Rankings, originally scheduled to run at 4 p.m., will debut at 5:15 p.m. instead. Come back later to check those out.