Chirps from Center Ice

Besides the big trade involving Paul Thompson for Spencer Machacek, there were a few things going on this week you should know about, that you may already know about and if you don’t know, now you know…

Andrew Ebbett is back in Wilkes-Barre. Harry Zolnierczyk went up Tuesday. Getting Ebbett back should help the Penguins power play.

Speaking of power play, the Portland Pirates scored four of ’em Wednesday in Binghamton, and rolled the East Division leading B-Sens 5-1. The Pirates have at least one power play goal in each of their last ten games and are 10th overall in the AHL on the power play (19.7%) coming into this weekend.

Speaking of Portland, new acquisition Spencer Machacek has three of his nine goals this year scored against the Pirates playing for Springfield.

The Olympics start this weekend. The NHL will be on hiatus, so to fill evening air time, if you own a satellite radio like I do, the AHL will be featured on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio. Wilkes-Barre will be featured on Friday, February 14 when they square off against the Binghamton Senators up in Southern New York.

Gameday for the game vs. Portland will be up on the blog at 3 p.m.