Chirps from Center Ice

A fan blog about the AHL's Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins

Category Archives: Pittsburgh

Three More

Comments Off on Three More Posted by on September 26, 2013

News from the day was that Pittsburgh sent Zach Sill, Brian Dumoulin and Harry Zolnierczyk to Wilkes-Barre.

Zolnierczyk will have to clear waivers. We will know by noon tomorrow if anyone claims him.

It will take at least that long for my mind to clear from the news that Zolnierczyk could actually skate in Wilkes-Barre. I didn’t include him in the 2013 Offseason Moves List and expected him to stay up in the NHL especially with the departure of Matt Cooke this summer.

Jonathan had words on the news and a preview of Pittsburgh’s opening night roster. He also reset the depth chart.

Elsewhere….

Looking over the fence at the neighbors, certified WBS killer Tomas Kundratek cleared waivers today and was assigned to the Hershey Bears.

The Portland Pirates will be playing all of their games this season about an hour north in Lewiston, Maine due to building issues in Cumberland County. The plan was for the Pirates to play all of the games in Lewiston until January while the Civic Center was being renovated, but the Pirates and the Board of Trustees couldn’t see eye to eye on a bunch of issues so instead of starting the season with the uncertainty of where the Pirates will play in 2014, they made the announcement that they will play the entire season in Lewiston.

A couple of home dates were jumbled for the Pirates with the announcement, but that doesn’t affect the Penguins. Wilkes-Barre travels to Lewiston on January 18 @ 7 p.m.

More tomorrow with the recap of Pens-Amerks Round II Friday night.

Pittsburgh, The AHL, WBS

Pre-Pre-Season Chatter

Comments Off on Pre-Pre-Season Chatter Posted by on September 24, 2013

The preseason gets underway tomorrow for the Penguins tomorrow up in Rochester. There won’t be a radio call of the game by Mike O’Brien, but he will be tweeting. I’ll take notes and throw up a quick recap afterwards tomorrow night.

— There’s ice in the barn. Pretty.

— Tom Kuhnhackl and Harrison Ruopp were sent to Wilkes-Barre today. Remaining up in Pittsburgh are Brian Dumoulin, Andrew Ebbett, Chris Conner and Zach Sill. Dumoulin is about 7-10 days away from being cleared to play again. Pittsburgh released their roster for their final preseason game tomorrow and neither Ebbett, Sill or Conner are on it. In fact, the roster looks more like a regular season NHL roster than it does anything else. So, reading the tea leaves, you could safely say that those three will be in Wilkes-Barre soon.

— Jonathan blogged today with among other things, his thoughts on the WBS goaltending situation. He seems to think the Pens will be fine in goal. I’m much more skeptical than he is, but you have to remember that Bombulie is around the team much more than I am, is more hockey-educated than I am and is the expert. I’ll take a “wait and see” approach.

— Out of Jonathan’s blog, he reports that Eric Hartzell and Andy Chiodo will split time in net for the Pens tomorrow in Rochester.

No Gameday setup with the preseason games. Just brief recaps. So check back tomorrow evening.

Pittsburgh, WBS

Waive Hello To More Nostalgia

Comments Off on Waive Hello To More Nostalgia Posted by on September 23, 2013

Three things to get to this afternoon.

First, the Edmonton Oilers claimed Steve MacIntyre off of waivers. Since MacIntyre was once employed by the Oil Country, one assumed that they regret ever letting the Baddest Man in Hockey™* go. There have also been fisticuffs involving the Oilers preseason games I really haven’t been paying attention to, so the waiver claim makes sense.

Second, the Pens signed Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers to a PTO today. Yup, more nostalgia. You’ll recall Deslauriers in WIlkes-Barre during the split affiliation year with the Edmonton Oilers in 2006-07. More recently, Deslauriers was an Anaheim Ducks prospect. He’s put up pretty stale numbers in the past few years. Sub 90 save percentage and a goals against average in the 3.00 neighborhood or higher. Granted, some of the teams he played for weren’t anything to write home about.

I don’t know what it is with all of this nostalgia going on at Coal Street. Hell, if Peter Mannino is not ready for the start of the season and Pittsburgh doesn’t think Eric Hartzell is quite ready for AHL work, the goaltending tandem on October 5 up in Bridgeport will be Andy Chiodo and Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers, likely captained by Tom Kostopoulos with Chris Conner running the power play.

To drive the nostalgia speculation even further, John Curry must have all calls from the 570 area code blocked on his phone or something. Last I checked Curry was still unsigned. I’ll tell you this, and this is just my un-hockey-educated opinion speaking, but I’d feel a lot more comfortable with having John Curry in town then I would anything representing a goaltender in Wilkes-Barre right now.

I’ve been seeing a lot of chatter on my different social media platforms about Brad Thiessen and the Pens, “letting him go.” I disagree with this. Hockey is a business. Thiessen fulfilled his contract with the Pittsburgh organization and looked elsewhere for employment. That destination was Finland. Thiessen, had he stuck around for another year and re-signed, would have been #4 on the organizational depth chart again behind Fleury-Vokoun-Zatkoff. Hindsight being what it is, don’t kick yourselves or others for Thiessen doing what’s best for himself and his family by seeking the best opportunity possible at the time.

Oh, finally, Bobby Farnham was re-assigned to Wilkes-Barre today.

Feel free to disagree / agree with my thoughts above and drive the discussion a bit in the comments section below.

* – trademark pending (not really)

Just Rambling, Pittsburgh, WBS

Eight More For the Corps

Comments Off on Eight More For the Corps Posted by on September 22, 2013

Announced this afternoon were more cuts from Pittsburgh’s camp. Here’s who is headed to Coal Street:

Forwards: Nick Drazenovic, Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond, Steve MacIntyre, Jayson Megna, and Adam Payerl

Defensemen: Scott Harrington, Brendan Mikkelson and Philip Samuelsson

Drazenovic, Mikkelson and MacIntyre have to clear waivers. We will know noon Monday if they clear or not.

Here is a look at the updated Pittsburgh roster.

Names on that list more familiar to Wilkes-Barre fans are defensemen Brian Dumoulin, Olli Maatta, Derrick Pouliot, and Harrison Ruopp. Forwards Chris Conner, Andrew Ebbett, Bobby Farnham, Tom Kuhnhackl and Zach Sill.

For Dumoulin and Farnham, they are on the injured list. So they can’t get sent back unless they are recovered from their ailments.

For Pouliot and Maatta, it’s NHL or back to juniors this year. Both aren’t old enough to play in the AHL.

Veteran guys like Conner and Ebbett will get a more extended look up top, but I would expect them back soon.

Glad to see Tom Kuhnhackl and Zach Sill get extended looks for Pittsburgh. Sill has been a beast in the faceoff circle for the Pens in their preseason games. Kuhnhackl doesn’t look out of place.

Business is picking up…

Pittsburgh, WBS

1A and What’s Left

Comments Off on 1A and What’s Left Posted by on September 21, 2013

So I just finished watching the Pittsburgh Penguins lose to the Columbus Blue Jackets Saturday evening and was reading up on Grand Theft Auto V before diving back into the only video game I play and saw the ESPN ScoreCenter alert light up on my iPad.

“Penguins G Tomas Vokoun out indefinitely after procedure to dissolve blood clot in pelvis” it read.

The NHL GameCenter alert a few minutes later confirmed:

“Penguins goalie Tomas Vokoun is out indefinitely after a procedure to dissolve a blood clot in his pelvis.”

All the confirmation I needed was right here.

Damn.

This, obviously, puts Wilkes-Barre in a bind in goal. They recently received G Eric Hartzell from Pittsburgh. It’ll be Hartzell / Mannino / possibly Chiodo batting for the nets in Wilkes-Barre.

Here’s the problem. Hartzell is an untested rookie. Mannino was hurt for the better part of last season for Manchester and didn’t practice today according to Jonathan Bombulie’s entry on day one of WBS camp. Andy Chiodo is in town as the latest nostalgic blast from the past trying to make the team. I’d say, with the 15th season of Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins hockey a mere two weeks away, there is reason to worry.

Why? The Pens pride themselves on stellar defense and goaltending. WBS will never lead the league in goals for per game. So they rely on defense and goaltending to win them games. Defense will be fine. Goaltending is off to a shaky start and the season hasn’t even started yet.

Pittsburgh has themselves a stellar backup in Jeff Zatkoff, who was downright stellar for Wilkes-Barre last season. There should be absolutely no reason to worry about the NHL backup in the Steel City.

Times like this tear me apart. The human side of it all. I feel great for Jeff Zatkoff, who will finally be able to achieve his dream of being a goaltender in the NHL. I pray for a speedy and complete recovery for Tomas Vokoun.

Wilkes-Barre may end up at the end of the day just fine. They have had great success with undrafted goaltenders. See: Thiessen, Brad and Curry, John.

Pittsburgh, WBS

The Last Silent Tuesday

Comments Off on The Last Silent Tuesday Posted by on September 17, 2013

With the start of WBS training camp now hours away instead of many days, today marks the last Tuesday things will be pretty quiet in the world of AHL hockey.

Here’s whats going on leading up to the start of camp this weekend….

—> Cuts. Pittsburgh made a few today. Paul Thompson, Tom Kostopoulos, Brian Gibbons, Dominik Uher, Clark Seymour, Reid McNeill, Nick D’Agostino were sent to Wilkes-Barre. Pittsburgh also sent guys back to their junior teams.

—> They also signed J-S Dea, who impressed at rookie camp. He’ll go back to his junior team.

—> Pittsburgh lost in their second preseason game to the Detroit Red Wings Monday night 4-1.

—> Here’s Jonathan’s updates on a few things from the past couple of days.

—> Here’s Seth Rorabaugh again catching up with not-so-newcomer Chris Conner.

—> A look at the AHL preseason schedule.

—> In what alternative world do we live in when something like this happens? Take a listen.

—> Mike Carman, late of Hershey, tweeted Monday that he is headed to Wilkes-Barre. Here are a couple of tweets on him from me and others…

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/379561157477945344

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I’m sure I will have more this week with other Wilkes-Barre announcements.

Pittsburgh, The AHL, WBS

First Impressions – PIT 4 — CBJ 5 (OT)

Comments Off on First Impressions – PIT 4 — CBJ 5 (OT) Posted by on September 15, 2013

So I haven’t blogged much this weekend, and the Penguins / Blue Jackets preseason game was on ROOT Sports filled with Penguins prospects and players tabbed for Wilkes-Barre duty at some point fairly soon, so here goes.

The Pittsburgh Penguins played their first preseason game Sunday evening and lost 5-4 in overtime.

Zach Sill and Brendan Mikkelson were the scratches tonight. With Pittsburgh already announcing the lineups for tomorrow and with them not on it, one could expect that Sill / Mikkelson could be sent to Wilkes-Barre soon.

:47 in to the first period, Beau Bennett lays a body on a guy, steals the puck, passes to James Neal who scores to make it 1-0.

Pens had a power play about halfway though. Newcomer Andrew Ebbett was orchestrating the power play unit like I haven’t seen in quite a while (from an AHL perspective) If Ebbett doesn’t stick in Pittsburgh, Wilkes-Barre will have a hell of a power play quarterback. He assisted on a Chuck Kobasew tally after the power play expired.

Columbus scored two goals on the power play in the period. One was on a tail end of a 5-on-3 where Ebbett was doing a fine job killing off the two man advantage. This is my first time paying any kind of real attention to him, my takeaway is that he is a very dynamic player.

Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond hits hard. The best inference I can give is like running into an oak tree.

Bobby Farnham checked a Blue Jackets player hard in the near corner late in the second period and went off favoring his lower body area to the dressing room. Turns out it was 6’4 229 pound Ilari Melart. As tweeted by the voice of the Wheeling Nailers DJ Abisalih, Farnham is not afraid of anyone. He did not return for the third period.

Shots were 26-12 Pittsburgh through two periods. Seemed a bit sluggish in parts in the second period, but Pittsburgh really did a good job of limiting Columbus’ chances on goal at Fleury.

To start the third, goaltenders Jeff Zatkoff and Oskar Dansk took over for Fleury, McElhinney respectively.

Adam Payerl and Ilari Melart had the games first fight after a goal mouth scrum in front of Dansk. A lot of clutching and grabbing, but a draw.

Zatkoff let in two quick goals. One in a scrum where it looked like to me at least that there was a Blue Jacket sitting on him by Mark Letestu (remember him?) The other on a Cam Atkinson glove high snipe on a rush.

Dustin Jeffrey (remember him??) scored a power play goal for the Penguins. Tom Kuhnhackl was out there slinging it around and had some nice passes. Kuhnhackl and Jeffrey later assisted on Chuck Kobasew’s second of the game to tie the game at 4-4.

Joe Vitale and James Wisniewski had the second fight and Wisniewski got his Gordie Howe hat trick.

Zatkoff had a game saving, sprawling save to preserve the 4-4 deadlock and to force overtime.

Brian Dumoulin took a shot up high and went off favoring something upper body late. With this really being a meaningless preseason game, he was not seen again.

Ryan Murray scored with 21.2 left in overtime off of a Penguins offensive zone turnover. Over analyzing here, but if Dumoulin hadn’t been injured, am I even typing this paragraph?

Pittsburgh plays tomorrow against Detroit, and that game won’t be televised. So I don’t think I will have a recap on that one.

EDIT: Dave Molinari had this to say about the statuses of Farnham and Dumoulin:

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Elsewhere…

Ex-Penguin Keven Veilleux was sent to AHL Portland in parent Phoenix’s first round of cuts.

Washington made cuts today too. Click here to see some names headed to Hershey.

There may be some cuts tomorrow in Pittsburgh. If there are, I will have a blog on it. If not, hopefully I have something else to blog about.

Pittsburgh

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