Chirps from Center Ice

Pittsburgh kind of finalized their opening night roster with the assignments of the already cleared Zach Trotman and Zach Aston-Reese. Aston-Reese didn’t need waivers.

Their roster stands at 24 as of Monday and have to make one more move to get to the 23 man limit.

But Daniel Sprong, Brian Dumoulin and Tristan Jarry are all day to day with body ailments. Sprong and Dumoulin are skating on their own and not practicing, Jarry is not.

So where does that leave things?

Pittsburgh could IR all three and easily recall Trotman and Aston-Reese and have Casey DeSmith back up Matt Murray in goal Thursday night.

I would say of the remaining players up eligible to come down, you are looking at the waiver exempt players in Juuso Riikola and Tristan Jarry possibly coming down when all players are healthy. But since the roster is now at 24, with only one more move to make, the money would be on Jarry coming down and Riikola staying up. No NHL team carries three goalies and Jarry doesn’t need waivers. It’s possible that they bump Riikola down to get to 23, don’t IR anyone and keep things where they are until Jarry is healthy enough to come down and then recall Riikola.

Who knows. A lot of things still in play here. They seem to be all in on Dominik Simon, that is for sure.

Coal Street also made cuts. Forwards Tyler Bird, Yushiroh Hirano, Renārs Krastenbergs, Cédric Lacroix, Zac Lynch and Nick Saracino as well as defensemen Johnny Austin, Dan Fick, Craig Skudalski and goalie Danny Tirone all were sent to Wheeling this afternoon. Matt Abt, Cam Brown, Tim Erixon and Ryan Horvat stick around for now. There are no roster limits in the AHL, in case you were wondering. They are the only league of the big three (NHl, AHL, ECHL) without one.

Finally, the AHL’s new streaming toy, AHLTV, will be free to all who sign or have already signed up for the service this weekend. With Wilkes-Barre off Friday and Sunday, I’ll be messing around on there trying out all the new features they have been talking about.

If you missed the Pacific Division Preview which debuted at noon, it’s one post up or right here. Central tomorrow at noon, more news sprinkled in here and there. Keep checking back, business is picking back up.