Chirps from Center Ice

Probably not the biggest ripple effecting the parent team, but Penguins Jim Rutherford made a move on the NHL trade deadline that had a direct result on his AHL team in Wilkes-Barre.

The Penguins acquired Josh Jooris for Greg McKegg in essentially a swap of AHL eligible players on NHL contracts. Jooris will report to Wilkes-Barre and McKegg goes to Charlotte to be with the Checkers.

Nick Hart with the scouting report…

Jooris was with the Carolina Hurricanes and has played in 37 games for them. He has over 200 games of NHL experience. I’ll consider this an upgrade for Wilkes-Barre. McKegg started in the NHL and was waived down, then sort of just got lost in the shuffle. Jooris steps down from the NHL and hopefully brings the right attitude for the Penguins and contributes.

As of 4 pm Monday. it doesn’t look like there were any more trades made effecting the organization. I didn’t see anything on the AHL Transactions page about players being assigned to Wilkes-Barre for the purposes of being eligible to play in the AHL after today.

UPDATE: As I was getting ready to close up shop for the night, Pittsburgh assigned Tristan Jarry and Dominik Simon to Wilkes-Barre and recalled Casey DeSmith. Zach Aston-Reese was not part of the news. Aston-Reese is the only other player on the NHL Penguins roster to be eligible for assignment to the AHL. Unless he shows up on a paper move, he’s up for good. EDIT: Aston-Reese was papered down per the AHL Transactions page. Dominik Simon is a huge add for Wilkes-Barre and DeSmith is indeed eligible for re-assignment since he was on the AHL roster at the 3 p.m. deadline.

Other news of the day…

Word out of practice was that Murray took a shot off of the head from an Olli Maatta stick.

If any other moves are made, I will either update this post or add another. This is a long way of saying keep checking back.