Chirps from Center Ice

Nothing of much substance to blog about. Nick Johnson will be back in the lineup per Bombulie and the Connecticut Whale revealed one of their three jerseys today.

Offering you preview of coming attractions here at Chirps from Center Ice, I will be posting on Monday my 1st Quarter Report Card on the team through Game 20 vs. Rochester. Each player who has skated for WBS will be graded by me in performance. You don’t often see these on a single team, let alone a minor league team, so this will be fun.

Look for the Gameday post for tomorrow’s game vs. Albany around 4 p.m. tomorrow.

I was off the grid for the big part of today. But what I retweeted on my Twitter feed this afternoon is probably enough to blog about, no?

• I learned by following Siena Slusser on Twitter that the Tampa Bay Lightning recalled Matt Roy and James Wright from Norfolk today. Great timing when you consider the Admirals and Penguins skate tomorrow evening in Wilkes-Barre Township.
• Corey Potter, Brian Strait, Steve Wagner and Zach Sill will be featured in the first go around of game worn jersey cards which is coming up on November 27 in a game vs. the Rochester Americans. They will also have Brad Thiessen’s Pittsburgh Penguins sweater available in tiny pieces featured in a jersey card. It’s his sweater from the NHL rookie tournament last season.
• Bears beat writer Tim Leone checks in regarding the Hershey walking wounded. No Aucoin this weekend for the Bears.
• I often wonder how fans got to be fans of a team. Hershey PxP man John Walton tweeted today a story about how his partner on The Old Barn Hockey Show, Frank Schofield, came to become a fan of the Bears. Good read.
• Here is a story from Scott Briggs of the Telegraph-Journal regarding the recovery of rookie Pens defenseman Alex Grant.
• Bombulie checks in with his Thursday blog update. If there are no huge concerns in morning skate, The Ticket could be back. Nick Johnson was held out of contract drills, so he’s likely out the weekend.
• AHL observer Patrick Williams checks in with his weekly Thursday feature for The Hockey News.
• You be the judge of this. Big stick tap to Chairman How’s Glorious Army for sending me the link. Let me know what you think in the comments, or you can e-mail me.

Norfolk tomorrow. The Gameday Preview is done and scheduled for 4:30 p.m. tomorrow. Let’s Go Pens!

Couple of things to get to / recap so let’s get started:

• Joey Haddad was indeed recalled from Wheeling to Wilkes-Barre / Scranton. Stick tap to Eric P at the Wilkes-Blog for pointing me in the direction of the AHL Transactions page. I tweeted it earlier.
• Bridgeport Sound Tigers head coach Jack Capuano was named head coach of the New York Islanders today. Further reading regarding this subject can be found at Mike Fornabaio’s blog. Mr. Fornabaio covers the Sound Tigers beat.
• Jussi Rynnas was named AHL Player of the Week today. Surprising, in light of the 6 assist performance last night by Hershey’s Mathieu Perreault in the Bears’ 8-3 victory over the Binghamton Senators last night.
• The AHL suspended pest Louis Robitaille one game for his actions over the weekend. He will miss tomorrow’s game v. the Penguins. 

Back to Haddad, Bombulie had some thoughts today regarding the current state of affairs and health of the Penguins. To summarize, Chris Connor is still in Pittsburgh, Nick Johnson is hurt and will not play tomorrow at Albany and Brett Sterling is a definite maybe (which means he won’t play) so the Haddad call up was made. Bryan Lerg looked OK in Worcester Saturday in my opinion. The kicker in all of this was this exchange between Bombulie and Coach John Hynes today: 

Q: Thiessen is coming off a 38-save shutout. You have four games this week. Is he going to get three of them or are you going to stick with two and two?

A: It’s a good question. I’ve debated that around the last couple days, but I think I’m not sure yet. 

It’s basically answering the question without answering the question. Unheard of in real life. For you married men I offer the following: 

Wife: Did you take the trash out like I asked?

You: You know, it’s an interesting question. I have kicked the idea around since you first asked me, and I will get back to you. 

Where does that land you? Competing with Fido for sleeping space in the family doghouse for sure. 

Where am I going with this? I have no idea, especially since I am not married. Regardless, here is what I think happens. John Curry gets the start tomorrow vs. the hapless Devils. If he plays great, it will go Thiessen / Curry / Thiessen this weekend for Norfolk / Hershey / Binghamton. If not, I think it’ll be Thiessen / Thiessen / Curry.

If you missed it yesterday, details for the December 30 game in Pittsburgh were announced by the Penguins yesterday and I have it covered one post down.

Other news to get to: Zach Boslett and the guys who run the Faceoff Factor featured yours truly and Eric P at the Wilkes-Blog for a round-table, if you will, regarding the October Three Stars of the Month for the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins. Have a see.

We have our first AHL coaching casualty. Adirondack’s Greg Gilbert was relived of his duties and John Paddock will take over. You’ll remember Paddock’s name with the Phantoms as their head coach in 2008-2009. He was promoted to Assistant GM of the Flyers, a position he’ll keep. Links: AHL / Phantoms / Tim McManus, beat writer

AHL watchdog Patrick Williams (who used to cover the Phantoms when they still resided in Philadelphia) provided some thoughts on his Twitter feed last evening. If Twitter only allowed me to follow one person, Patrick Williams would be it.

That’s about it for today. Alain Nasreddine was supposed to be the booster club guest. He was having Blackberry issues and forgot.* Next time I see him I will tell him to invest in an iPhone.

While at the booster club meeting, president Vicki Silva was nice enough to let me use the microphone and give away my blog. So if you are here for the first time, welcome! Tell your friends. If you are into Twitter, there is a button on the right to follow me there. There isn’t a Facebook button, I don’t do Facebook. Sorry.

* – Stick tap to other booster club members who informed me of this on Twitter.