Chirps from Center Ice

Pens lost another one last night by the score of 5-1. Brandon DeFazio really shined bright with the lone goal.

Bombulie with a nugget-by-nugget analysis here.

The big news was that Robert Bortuzzo left the game with what the Pens called the ever so specific “undisclosed injury.” He will be re-evaluated today. Also, Paul Thompson left the game and there was no update as to his status.

Take what you want from a rookie tournament, but the Pens have been outscored 1-9 on aggregate in two games.

Final game is Tuesday afternoon against the Chicago Blackhawks prospects.

Go Penguins.

With all this chatter on my Twitter feed about football being back, I figured I would link you through to things brewing on the Pittsburgh hockey front.

I was away yesterday, but kept dibs on the Ottawa / Pittsburgh rookie game yesterday from Oshawa, Ontario yesterday. The Pens lost 4-0. Patrick Killeen was in goal and made 33 saves. Corey Cowick for Ottawa had two goals and an assist. Huge majority of the names listed in these games will be with their AHL affiliates. Brian Strait left the game early with a puck to the face. The Pens tweeted he was stitched up and is fine. Robert Bortuzzo, Simon Despres, Keven Veilleux and Zach Sill were scratched for the Penguins.

The Pens are back in action later from Oshawa taking on the Toronto Maple Leafs. John Hynes spoke about the prospects today. There will be live-blogging on the Pittsburgh site. You can watch the game on a 30 minute tape delay on the Maple Leafs website. I will be following along and retweeting others there on the Twitter side. My buddy Eric P from the Wilkes-Blog will be tweeting and live-blogging the affairs as well. So you are covered.

Let’s Go Penguins!

There has been rumblings all summer about the possibility of ex-NHLer and Pittsburgh Penguin Richard Park signing with the organization. If you believe the comment sections of other Penguin blogs people who know people have said that Richard Park was headed his way to Pittsburgh.

Well today, amongst potentially the worst flooding in Wilkes-Barre since 1972, the Pens have their man.

More on where Park projects between Wilkes-Barre and Pittsburgh later, I have to get to high ground because of the constant rain which has pummeled the I-81 watershed and from Binghamton to Hershey with Wilkes-Barre in between.

Keep chirpin’. Go Penguins!

Today, Pittsburgh announced details on the 2011 Rookie Tournament which will be held in Oshawa, Ontario in September. It is going to be held September 9-13 and feature prospects from the Ottawa Senators, Toronto Maple Leafs and Chicago Blackhawks.

Penguins HD Radio will actually have the games live.

Full schedule and roster breakdown here.

My buddy Eric P from the Wilkes-Blog who will actually be at the tournament in a few weeks went and provided his readers (me included) brief one line capsules with last years stats from that player. You can find his summary here.

Thoughts: Openly debated the exclusion of Joe Vitale from the tournament on the Twitter side this afternoon and what it means / what it says for guys like Keven Veilleux and Eric Tangradi. These two must perform with big numbers by the end of 2011 or else they will be traded away and will no longer be a part of the organization, in my opinion. The great thing about the Penguins top to bottom is that they are stacked with talent from the NHL level all the way down to this years entry level draft class. I truly believe that time is running out on guys like Eric Tangradi and Keven Veilleux.

Keep chirpin’. Go Penguins.

Announced this afternoon that Pittsburgh has signed Jason Williams to a one year, two-way contract today.

He is a veteran of 447 NHL games and is 30 years old. Looks like, to me, to be a depth signing here on the farm for Wilkes-Barre / Scranton.

You can examine his numbers over here at hockeydb.com and make your own assumptions as to whether or not Williams is an upgrade to the departed Tim Wallace who signed with the New York Islanders last week.

Chirps from Center Ice would like to thank Mr. Williams for breaking up the monotony of the slow news cycle which is the summer months on a hockey blog.

Announced today that the Pittsburgh Penguins signed goaltender Scott Munroe to a one year NHL contract. It is anticipated that Munroe will backup Brad Thiessen in Wilkes-Barre.

Munroe spent last year in the KHL where he appeared in 31 games and had a 9-12-2 record with a 3.03 GAA and a 0.896 SV%. Before that he spent a year with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers where he had a 19-16-3 record with a 2.52 GAA and a 0.920 SV%.

I expect Munroe to see 25-30 starts this season behind Thiessen. He will have probably the best team he has ever had in front of him, so we will see how he fares.

The bottom line at the end of the day is whether or not Scott Munroe is seen as an upgrade over Patrick Killeen and on par with what John Curry was as Thiessen’s back up with a good team in front of him. Time will tell.