Chirps from Center Ice

It’s hot in Wilkes-Barre. Officially a heat wave. Close your eyes, you think it’s the desert.

That desert also applies to the blog world.

There is not a lot out there right now. In fact, I wouldn’t even classify this as a blog post. But here’s what I scraped together though. Let’s go in the division first:

Tampa Bay re-signed J.T. Brown and Mark Barberio. Seems the Crunch are bringing back everyone they can.

Anaheim re-signed Mat Clark. Clark appeared in a team high 71 games for the Admirals last season.

Binghamton re-signed Mike Hoffman, and also extended head coach Luke Richardson and his staff.

The Bears aren’t done yet.

Pittsburgh development camp is ongoing. As always, the venerable Eric Majeski had his thoughts on Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3.

Mike O’Brien made it to Pittsburgh today and had a feature on the future of defense.

Chirps from Center Ice turned three on Monday. Here’s to three more years. Thank you for reading.

Seems that every time I load Twitter, there are live tweets of a prospect camp somewhere for an NHL team. It’s been going on for a few weeks now.

No, I am not complaining of hockey live tweets, as that’s what I base my entire social media presence on, I’m just saying that prospect development camps are open for business.

Well, the Penguins are opening theirs next week. They announced a roster today complete with player bios.

A name on the roster familiar with Penguins fans in Wilkes-Barre is Tom Kuhnhackl, who apparently is healed enough to participate in the camp. Recall that he was injured earlier this year and wasn’t seen again. This is a positive sign as I expect him to have a strong camp.

Notables such as Brian Dumoulin, Reid McNeill, Philip Samuelsson, Jayson Megna, Adam Payerl and Dominik Uher are also attending next week.

There’s a name on the list that is actually on the “Big Board” who is an unrestricted free agent. His name is Carter Rowney, a right winger who had a four game apprenticeship with Abbotsford last year. He’s unranked on the Board, noted to have “good size” – he’s 6’2 and 202. He was the assistant captain for his University of North Dakota team and also received “most improved player” in 2011-12.

The Wilkes-Barre coaching staff is going to run the camp, so it will be interesting to see if Rowney or any other camp invitee gets an invite to Wilkes-Barre’s camp in the Fall.

Elsewhere…

— Ex-WBS goaltender Ty Conklin was named St. Louis Blues Goaltender Development Coach today.

— Derek Nesbitt signed with the Oklahoma City Barons today to an AHL contract. Recall that Wilkes-Barre sat Nesbitt out at the end of last season so he can retain his, “tweener” status and not be counted as a veteran for next season. To me, seems like a lot of hoops that the Penguins jumped through for a guy that was virtually invisible for the them in the postseason. It’s the nature of the business, I get that, just because it’s the nature of the business doesn’t mean I have to like it. The 2013 Offseason Moves list has been updated to reflect the move.

— Harry Zolnierczyk signed his contract with Pittsburgh today. I maintain he will not play a game for Wilkes-Barre next season.

— The Utica Comets may be playing in the AHL’s Western Conference next season, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely ruled out that they won’t play the Penguins next year. If they do, Penguins fans may see some familiar faces on the team as Benn Ferriero and Brandon DeFazio signed contracts with parent Vancouver today.

Have a great weekend.

Every AHL East Division team or their NHL parent has had news since the last time I blogged.

Pittsburgh announced the re-signings of Paul Thompson and Zach Sill to one year deals. Good to have both in the mix for next season.

Pittsburgh also announced today the signing of Matt D’Agostini, a right winger with NHL experience who will likely provide third / fourth line depth for Pittsburgh and will probably never be seen in Wilkes-Barre. To that end, while I have updated the 2013 Offseason Moves List to reflect the Sill / Thompson moves. I did not note the D’Agostini signing.

Here’s a nice story from the Wheeling Nailers on Bobby Farnham’s NHL contract.

Norfolk has some news. First, they hired ECHL Coach of the Year Jarrod Skalde from the Cincinnati Cyclones as an assistant coach. Second, Anaheim signed Alex Grant, who was traded there from Pittsburgh. Finally, the Zack Stortini and Nolan Yonkman news is finally official.

Ottawa re-signed Binghamton captain Mark Borowiecki Tuesday. Borowiecki is probably graduated to Ottawa this Fall though. They also re-signed David Dziurzynski.

Syracuse signed Evan Rankin to an AHL deal today. Rankin was with Rochester last year.

Washington re-signed Peter LeBlanc, who led the Bears in playoff scoring, for another season.

Robert Bortuzzo filed for salary arbitration today. There’s another ex-WBS Penguin also on that list.

Brad Thiessen and Warren Peters are still unemployed.

Took them a while, but the Penguins made a big splash again in Free Agency. Setting aside the news that they signed Rob Scuderi and re-signed Craig Adams, two players that will never set foot in Wilkes-Barre, the parent club signed three players likely destined for Coal Street in the Fall and re-signed a familiar face.

Let’s get to the familiar one first. Bobby Farnham earned himself an NHL contract today. He needs no introduction.

The next three were all in the Top 50 in the Bombulie / Cignoli Big Board.

Chris Conner. A familiar face to Wilkes-Barre fans. His second tenure in Northeast Pennsylvania. Number 34 on the Big Board, Conner put up 13-27-40 in 60 games for the Portland Pirates last year, good for fifth on the team.

Nick Drazenovic. 24 on the Big Board. Breakout year for Drazenovic on a pretty loaded Springfield Falcons team, second in points for the Falcons, going 17-36-53 in 62 games last season including an eight game look for the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Andrew Ebbett. 26 on the Big Board, described on it as a bubble player who is an elite playmaker at the AHL level. 11-21-32 in 37 AHL games for the Chicago Wolves last season. Ebbett also played 28 games for the Vancouver Canucks, going 1-5-6.

Jonathan summed it up nicely:

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There’s a great new AHL blog out there focusing on strictly the AHL and its teams. Today, they had this piece on the WBS news.

Matt Cooke signed with Minnesota today. What this means is that it is very likely that recent acquisition Harry Zolnierczyk will probably remain with Pittsburgh and not be sent to Wilkes-Barre, at least in my opinion.

There was other news too.

The Hershey Bears kicked things off by announcing that they had signed Jamie Johnson to an AHL deal, who spent last season over in Russia in the KHL. Johnson had (27-44-71) playing with Rochester in 2009-10 while playing with Jeff Taffe in Rochester.

The Bears later announced the hire of assistant coach Ryan Mougenel who was recently the head coach of the Las Vegas Wranglers of the ECHL.

Tampa Bay / Syracuse signed ex-WBS Penguin Geoff Walker. Walker played 51 games limited by injury for the Lake Erie Monsters last season and put up 5-15-20.

Walker had this to say to Lindsay Kramer, which to me, represents an East Division power shift:

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There was a trade that may affect Norfolk, as Bobby Ryan was traded back to Ottawa from Anaheim for Jakob Silfverburg and Stefan Noesen. After the lockout last season Silfverburg went up and stayed up with Ottawa. Noesen is a prospect that will most likely start the season in Norfolk.

Trevor Smith is off to the The Big Smoke. No news on Brad Thiessen, Warren Peters or any other free agent on this list you should check out right now.

Finally, number one on the aforementioned Big Board, Keith Aucoin signed with the St. Louis Blues. Also, Mark Mancari and Alexandre Bolduc signed on with St. Louis. These guys were in the top nine on the Board. If they don’t stick with St. Louis, AHL affiliate Chicago has themselves quite the haul.

I will have the Liveblog back later tonight and all day tomorrow for Day 2.

According to this report, here’s who received qualifying offers from Pittsburgh today:

The only name not on the list was Keven Veilleux. The oft injured Veilleux didn’t do himself any favors using a slur in an ECHL stint and wasn’t even on the “black ace” squad this Spring. The writing has been on the wall for him for quite some time.

I’d be shocked if any of those qualified didn’t sign for next season.

There’s other stuff to touch on also.

The Maine Hockey Journal has a piece on Pittsburgh Penguins sixth round pick Blaine Byron, who will attend the University of Maine this Fall.

Draft guru Jesse Marshall broke down Pens second round pick G Tristan Jarry.

The Capitals qualified a bunch of guys today too. Among them was Penguin killer Tomas Kundratek, who wasted no time in re-signing today.

Ex-Penguins Tim Wallace and Brandon DeFazio are free agents again, as neither were qualified by their clubs.

There probably won’t be a Thursday update, unless one of those above qualified re-sign with Pittsburgh or some other move of significance is made. That said, you will want to check out the blog this Friday, the start of free agency.

I’m planning a “live blog” of sorts, with an assist to Twitter, as I will have a list of all the AHL East Division teams, their NHL parents, the beat writers that cover those AHL teams, plus any team employees that regularly offer commentary on said team as well as yours truly. If a move happens and a team tweets it, if you are following here on the blog you will see it in real time. At some point I will tweet out the link to the list so even if you are away from your computer and still want to follow along on Twitter, you can. I got you covered.

Business is about to pick up.