Chirps from Center Ice

At 3 pm Monday, my Twitter feed filled up with AHL teams announcing their home opener date and opponent. In that announcement was mention that the full AHL schedule will be made available sometime Tuesday at 3 p.m.

Oh, October 7 the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins will open their 2017-18 campaign against the Charlotte Checkers. I’ve not seen where the Penguins are the visitors for any opponents home openers, for what it’s worth.

Two other noteworthy things happened since we last blogged.

Pittsburgh signed an undrafted kid by the name of Adam Johnson to a contract last week. Johnson attended the Penguins development camp and Mark Recchi called him one of the most impressive prospects at camp. He’s a University of Minnesota-Deluth product that was second on the team with 18 goals and tied for second with 37 points. IN 14-15 he was second in USHL scoring for Sioux City with 71 points.

The second signing occurred Monday morning. Remember Reid Gardiner? He is back, after starting the season last year with the Penguins, Gardiner went back to juniors and dominated again, putting up an average of 1.32 points per game. I said last year that he was a diamond in the rough type signing then, and by all accounts he can be the same again. He’s a natural born point producer.

Back Tuesday to breakdown the 2017-18 AHL schedule.