Chirps from Center Ice

I’ll save you some time here, no signings today for the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins or Pittsburgh Penguins. There were some moves around the rest of the Atlantic Division, however, which I will encapsulate here. No links off here, sorry, its hot in Wilkes-Barre and I want to go back in my pool.

— Matt Lorito and Mike Sislo signed with the New York Islanders Bridgeport. Scoring punch with Lorito, who had a big year with Grand Rapids last year and durability with Mike Sislo, who appeared in every game for the Tucson Roadrunners. The Islanders also confirmed the report yesterday that they re-signed G Chris Gibson and Seth Helgeson.

— Bobby Butler signed an AHL only deal with Hartford. He is from the area so he is coming home. I had him #50 on my Big Board.

— Dan Renouf to Carolina. He brings a veteran presence and can put up points.

— Paul Thompson returns to the Florida Panthers / Springfield Thunderbirds. The ex-Penguin and most recently ex-captain of the Chicago Wolves returns back to the Thunderbirds.

— My top defenseman overall, Jacob MacDonald also signed with Florida. He is a power play machine.

As far as other ex-Penguins go, Ben Street, Brian Gibbons, and Carter Rowney signed with the Anaheim Ducks and Tom Kuhnhackl signed with the Islanders. Ben Street is the only player out of that group I would expect to see in the AHL, although you never know when a player moves to another organization.

So the teams that stayed relatively quiet made some big noise today. All were solid signings and all will help teams that missed playoffs last year (but for the Checkers and Renouf, who…well, I forget now…)

There are still some big names available on the AHL Big Board. Chris Bourque is still unsigned. Philip Samuelsson, Eric Tangradi, Dustin Tokarski to name others.

If Day 3 warrants a blog post, it will go Wednesday sometime. If not, Happy July Fourth!