Chirps from Center Ice

Tonight before the Hershey Bears squared off against the Charlotte Checkers at Giant Center it was announced that in conjunction with the Bears 75th anniversary season next year, that the Bears would head outside to grapple against the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins.

The date announced was Sunday, January 20, 2013 at Hersheypark Stadium.

Penguins announcement here. League announcement here.

Tickets will go on sale first to the Bears season ticket holders, then the Penguins season ticket holders then the general public.

This will be the first time ever that the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins have ever played an outdoor game.

Let’s Go Pens!

Took my lunch period today and ran records vs. remaining opponents for Connecticut,Wilkes-Barre, Hershey and Bridgeport in an attempt to figure out who finishes where in the Eastern Conference.

I previously crowned the Norfolk Admirals the East Division Champions. Let me go on record here and crown the St. John’sIceCaps as Atlantic Division Champions.

Now that that’s out of the way, Seeds 3 through 6 are still up for grabs. Northeast Division winner gets the 3 seed. That is either going to be Connecticut or Bridgeport. I am projecting Connecticut as the winner of this race. Here’s the table, teams current points are in parenthesis:

You have in-division four point games in there as well. Bridgeport plays Connecticut once more. Hershey and Wilkes-Barre play each other once more as well.

It would appear at least to me that Connecticut has the Northeast Division locked up. Bridgeport has lost its last five straight. I’m not considering Manchester in seventh because they’ve played two more games than the Sound Tigers and sit three points back.

Put this together and what do you have? Potentially a very interesting final weekend of the regular season, is what. The Penguins play a home and home vs. Bridgeport. By that time, all of the above are likely in playoffs and just jostling for seeding. If the Penguins win, they can’t help their seeding, so do they tank to let Bridgeport leapfrog Hershey and get the Sound Tigers in Round One? Personally I don’t see it and it really is asinine for me to suggest, but it makes you wonder.

Elsewhere…

Penguins can trim their magic number from the comfort of their couch cheering for the Rochester Americans to beat the Syracuse Crunch in regulation tonight. An Amerks regulation win trims the Penguins magic number from 8 to 6. An Amerks OT or SO win makes it 7. Any win by the Crunch keeps it at 8.*

Jonathan Bombulie mopped up the Steve MacIntyre madness from two weekends ago with Steve’s thoughts. Quite interesting.

Let’s Go Pens!

* – I think

A couple of leftover things from the past few days:

–> Goaltender Brad Fogal was released from his PTO.

–> Dustin Tokarski is on recall to parent Tampa Bay as Mathieu Garon is injured. I don’t think that a large majority of Norfolk’s success lies in goal, so we will see what Tokarski’s absence does to / for Norfolk.

–> It looks more and more that Norfolk and Syracuse will swap parent teams.

–> Bombulie checked in with a Thursday update. Bryan Lerg and Geoff Walker did not practice today before the team bussed to Providence. Jonathan did some math with Lerg, Walker and Eric Tangradi (still on recall to Pittsburgh) absence and what that means to the offensively challenged Penguins right now.

I tweeted prior to the St. John’s game that in order to beat St. John’s that secondary scoring was prerequisite. Matt Rust and Simon Despres scored the lone WBS goals that night. Despres perhaps has a tick more offensive upside than Rust, so take that for what it’s worth.

I will be chasing the team this weekend and will be in person for all three games. I leave for Providence Friday morning.

Gameday will be here on the blog at 3 p.m. as always.

Let’s Go Pens!

AHL Clear Day Rosters were announced today. You can find the full 30-team rosters here.

I decided to have a little fun with MS Paint. Here is what the Penguins Clear Day Roster looks like:

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Players not listed the above list include Matt Rust, Steve MacIntyre, Philip Samuelsson, Cody Wild and Patrick Killeen. Keven Veilleux and Boris Valabik are done for the year with injuries. Killeen can play because Brad Thiessen is still up on recall to Pittsburgh. The rest are listed as “in residence” meaning essentially that if there is an injury to any player on the Clear Day list, the “in residence player” can play.

Here is what the rest of the East Division Clear Day Lists look like, side-by-side:

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So there you have it.

Gameday for today’s matchup vs. St. John’s here on the blog later at 3 p.m.

Let’s Go Pens!