Chirps from Center Ice

In conjunction with the 25th anniversary of the team, the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins released the Top 25 Penguins All-Time Team.

Link to the team release here.

Here’s the list. Names in green were on my list.

Colby Armstrong
Paul Bissonnette
Teddy Blueger
Dennis Bonvie
Sebastien Caron
Andy Chiodo
Deryk Engelland
Bobby Farnham
Marc-Andre Fleury
Jake Guentzel
Tristan Jarry
Chris Kelleher
Tom Kostopoulos
Ben Lovejoy
Matt Murray
Alain Nasreddine
Brooks Orpik
Toby Petersen
Bryan Rust
Rob Scuderi
Zach Sill
John Slaney
Maxime Talbot
Tim Wallace
Ryan Whitney

Here’s my list. It isn’t in alphabetical order, like the list above.

Ben Lovejoy
Joey Mormina
Tom Kostopoulos
Dennis Bonvie
Marc-Andre Fleury
John Curry
Alain Nasreddine
Jeff Taffe
Chris Minard
Tim Wallace
Wade Brookbank
Casey DeSmith
Joe Vitale
Colby Armstrong
Jonathan Filewich
Connor James
Brian Dumoulin
Dustin Jeffrey
Paul Bissonnette
Brad Thiessen
Tristan Jarry
Alex Goligoski
John Slaney
Konstantin Koltsov
Brett Sterling

–

Some thoughts are as follows…you really can’t have Ben Lovejoy on the list and not include Joey Mormina…I wasn’t around to watch Chris Kelleher, Sebastien Caron, Andy Chiodo or Toby Petersen. I think it’s apparent that a lot of folks who have been with the team since 1999 voted, like I did and I am fine with that.

More modern day, you can’t have Bryan Rust on the list. You can’t have Max Talbot or Brooks Orpik on the list either. These guys carved out a hell of an NHL career for themselves. They said in the Max Talbot blurb that he scored the game winning goal in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. Great. How does that make him a Top 25 WBS Penguin?

Derek Engelland is a guy I will always associate with as a Hershey Bear.

Zach Sill and Bobby Farnham are the same person.

How soon we forget Game 6 against Providence the year the Penguins came from down 0-3 to beat the Bruins in 7 and the heroic, probably greatest performance ever (for far) by a goaltender and Brad Thiessen?

I knew that Wade Brookbank and Casey DeSmith had no shot but it was a fan list, I’m a fan so they made my list.

Jonathan Filewich, Brett Sterling, Chris Minard, Jeff Taffe and Dustin Jeffery made my list but didn’t make theirs. All snipers. You need a big goal late in the third period against Hershey in May. Who are you sending over the boards? I’m sending Chris Minard, Brett Sterling or Jonathan Filewich in that order before I even consider Bryan Rust.

You can make cases for Matt Murley, Valtteri Puustinen, Ryan Craig, Andrew Ference, Erik Christiansen, Shane Endicott and countless others and not be wrong. I think the list is skewed a bit because it’s taking into account things that the players did after they already passed through Coal Street (or River Street, or Public Square, depending on the era) and not considering those who made names for themselves in Wilkes-Barre.

I like that the Pens will be issuing trading cards, five each on five different Wednesday’s to commemorate their all time team.

More tomorrow, setting up the first three in three of the season.