Chirps from Center Ice

Couple things to touch on this evening that happened today…

Tom Sestito is on waivers. Provided he clears, the Penguins will be down to 25 players. They need to be at 23 next week. It was suggested that the Penguins may cut Jay McClerment and put Patric Hornqvist on injured reserve. That gives them time to leave the window open on auditions for the 3C position and gives them time to continue to evaluate Derrick Pouliot.

Utica is getting the AHL All-Star game again, the second time in three years, last hosting in 2015. This is actually late in the game for the League to announce a host site and usually when things like this happen it means that no other team in the AHL wanted the event. That Utica gets it again for the the second time in three years pretty much speaks to it. I guess it is better than no game at all.

Coal Street cut four players today, Daniel Leavens, Tom Mele, Kenny Ryan and Danny Pick were released and sent to Wheeling. Cam Brown, Hunter Fejes, Dan Milan, Kevin Schulze, Nick Sorkin, and Colin Stevens are the Wheeling contracted players who remain in the AHL with the Penguins.

Penguins will be using more regulars in the lineup Friday against Binghamton. I’ll be there and will have a blog post after the game with a final score and write-up of the game like Wednesday night.

Pittsburgh finally trimmed their roster today, and they did so all at once seemingly with the following players sent to Wilkes-Barre today.

Forwards

Zach Aston-Reese
Teddy Blueger
Jean-Sebastien Dea*
Thomas Di Pauli
Adam Johnson
Sam Miletic**
Dominik Simon
Colin Smith
Daniel Sprong
Christian Thomas
Freddie Tiffels
Garrett Wilson*

Defensemen

Lukas Bengtsson
Frank Corrado*
Kevin Czuczman*
Ethan Prow
Chris Summers*
Jarred Tinordi*
Zach Trotman*

Goaltenders

Casey DeSmith
Tristan Jarry

Key

* – players who need waivers
** – Miletic signed a three year entry level contract with Pittsburgh on Monday. At age 20, he is eligible for and look for him a lot, with Wilkes-Barre this upcoming season.

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The roster in Pittsburgh stands at 26 players. They need to be at 23 in time for the beginning of the season. Here is a look at the current roster.

Jonathan had some thoughts today regarding the roster spots still up for grabs. He believes, as do I, that the final roster spot comes down to Josh Archibald and Derrick Pouliot. Both need waivers. Pouliot is a bargaining chip that Pittsburgh could flip for a third line center, but that hasn’t happened yet. So if you are looking at it from a perspective of sending a guy out, it’s probably going to be Archibald because he’s less expendable in that he has less of a trade value vs. Pouliot.

Analysis

Wilkes-Barre’s camp stands at 49 players if no one goes claimed tomorrow at noon in waivers. There are no roster limits in the AHL, mind you.

Anyway, my thoughts on Pittsburgh are that they release Jay McClerment from his PTO and send Tom Sestito to WBS when he’s healthy after getting banged up in practice from a collision with Ryan Reaves. That leaves the Archibald / Pouliot decision to be made. I think it’s Archibald that gets the short end. My first three guys to go up after Archibald, and this is assuming that no one gets claimed on waivers, are Sprong, Aston-Reese and Johnson in that order. Sprong is going to get the Jake Guentzel treatment in Wilkes-Barre and go up full time in January. Johnson needs to learn the pro game. Depending on how he takes the demotion to the AHL and how he handles the pro game determines his success down here and future with Pittsburgh. I can’t wait to see a healthy Zach Aston-Reese tear up the Atlantic Division.

My second three are Dea, Simon and Garrett Wilson in no order. If you forced me, Simon, Dea and Wilson in that order. Competition in Wilkes-Barre camp and production in the first 20 games of the regular season can change first three and second three.

On defense, Jonathan likes Trotman a lot. I am going to defer in this category here because it is a large amount of players coming from all over with very high pedigrees. Competition here will only benefit the good of the order as far as a team perspective.

Finally, DeSmith and Jarry are going to probably split starts the first 10 games of the season and Pittsburgh’s management will leave the decision of who the number one starter will be here in Wilkes-Barre up to Clark Donatelli and his staff here. I would not want to be him in making that decision because it is going to be extremely tough with all of the firepower up front and the stacked blue line playing ahead of either Casey or Tristan.

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From Wilkes-Barre’s camp, Tom reported that Troy Josephs had some kind of surgery and won’t practice for at least a month. Sean Maguire was hurt Monday and did not practice Tuesday but Tom reported that it’s not serious and he’s day to day.

Tyler had thoughts on Day 1 and Day 2. When he posts Day 3, I will edit it in.

Penguins host the Hershey Bears in preseason action Wednesday night. I would be very interested in seeing who plays in that contest.

In case you are new here, I don’t go full bore in setting up or recapping preseason action. I’ll be at the game and there will be a brief recap of the action and who stood out, who didn’t, etc. Penguins host Binghamton Friday before bussing down to Hershey Saturday and then up to Bingo Sunday.

So but for anything breaking here Wednesday morning / afternoon, check out the blog again Wednesday night after the first preseason game for a recap.

It’s probably a false headline because all of the roster cuts Pittsburgh made from its roster Monday were all players who they returned to their junior clubs. They were, Jan Drozg (Shawinigan Cataractes), Zachary Lauzon (Rouyn-Noranda Huskies), Connor Hall (Kitchener Rangers) and Alex D’Orio (Saint John Sea Dogs).

One junior player remains, and will actually play Tuesday night in Pittsburgh’s preseason game against Buffalo. His name is Jordy Bellerive, fresh off signing a three year entry level contract on Saturday.

Here’s the lineup Pittsburgh is putting out for Tuersday’s affair against Buffalo, in case you are wondering.

Other stuff…

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Hershey signed five guys to PTOs. I thought at the time that they loaded up like Hershey always does but one name out of that quintet jumps out at me the most, the others are likely depth guys or heading to the Bears ECHL affiliate in South Carolina.

Matt Carey in case you were wondering, is the player that jumped out at me the most. He was good on a bad Hartford team last year. Put him on an offensive juggernaut like 11-time, watch out.

Mike O’Brien checked in from Pittsburgh, his thoughts here.

More later, probably this week.

Coal Street continued its summer of blockbuster signings with the announcement Wednesday afternoon that they have signed forward Christian Thomas formerly of the Hershey Bears.

Big time signing here. Thomas co-led the Bears in goals with 24 last season, 12 coming on the power play which was fifth overall in the AHL in that department.

For a team like the Penguins in desperate need it seems every year of a power play punch, the Thomas signing shores up that doubt for a team which is improved in defense and forward. Mind you, the Pens won the regular season overall, so it is shaping up like the Penguins may be as good or better than last season, if that is even conceivable.

It’s an AHL contract for Thomas in case you were wondering. It may be a bit of a surprise to some that Thomas went to the middle of September to be signed by a team. He most likely was looking for full time NHL work but with camps opening this week took the next best option in signing with a good AHL team in Wilkes-Barre.

Tyler has more, including the headline I was going to use.

Elsewhere, the Penguins won the Prospects Tournament this weekend and goaltender Alex D’Orio impressed enough people that he signed with Pittsburgh today to a three year entry level contract. D’Orio is an undrafted player who will return to juniors this season.

Pittsburgh opens camp Friday. They didn’t announce a roster when they made the news public Tuesday, so expect that to come Thursday.

We are getting there.

Oh, hello there!

Word of my demise here on the blog has been greatly exaggerated. No, I haven’t given it up. Yes, there hasn’t been anything of substance to blog about. J-S Dea finally signed his qualifying offer and Sahir Gill signed with the Rochester Americans as Jason Botterill continues to poach last years players from Coal Street.

There, you are caught up since the months time or so since I have been in the Chirps from Center Ice living room.

Some other notable things to blog about include the Penguins Rookie Tournament which gets going this weekend in Buffalo. Coal Street put out a nice press release about who is all going here complete with a roster and going next level by sharing the tournament guide complete with in depth player bios.

Notable names like Lukas Bengtsson, Ethan Prow, Jeff Taylor and Dylan Zink lead the blueliners. Forwards Zach Aston-Reese, Teddy Blueger, Thomas DiPauli, Reid Gardiner and Daniel Sprong lead the punch up front.

Pittsburgh will carry the games online through their website if you are itching to watch some hockey four weeks before the start of the regular season.

I’m going to get cracking soon on the AHL Previews and will share a date on when they will roll out in the coming weeks. We are not too far away from the first preseason games. Business is going to pick up again here shortly.