With Ian Cole taking a full slap shot off of his two front teeth in Pittsburgh’s last game against Nashville on Saturday night, the Penguins today recalled D Chris Summers from Wilkes-Barre this afternoon.
In the aftermath, Cole tweeted a picture of his repairs that is as graphic as you can think of. He had swelling and is doing better than expected per Mike Sullivan.
Summers isn’t expected to play in Pittsburgh’s games in Washington Wednesday and Tampa Bay Thursday but the Penguins needed to make a recall because historically they like to roll with seven defenseman.
Summers wasn’t my first choice as a player to go up in a role of the seventh defenseman, I expected Frank Corrado to get that call. But I just blog about the team, I don’t make hockey decisions.
On Coal Street, the Penguins defense is already stretched thin with the recall of Summers. Jeff Taylor, Zach Trotman and Jarred Tinordi are all out and most likely ruled out for the weekend. The skinny on Trotman, who left the game Saturday, is that he is day to day but is unlikely to play in this weekends games. (Isn’t that week to week?) So that leaves some combination of Andrey Pedan, Ethan Prow, Kevin Czuczman, Kevin Spinozzi, Frank Corrado, Dylan Zink and Lukas Bengtsson for Clark Donatelli and his staff to choose from. With a three in three coming up for the Penguins, expect to see a recall from Wheeling at some point before Friday, one would assume.
In other news, the Colorado Eagles will become the AHL’s 31st team in 2018-19 serving as the primary affiliate of the Colorado Avalanche. The Eagles are already the ECHL affiliate of the Avalanche so they are stepping up a league. They are going to play in the Pacific Division. That means you are probably going to see the Texas Stars and San Antonio Rampage head to the Central Division and most likely the Cleveland Monsters head to the Eastern Conference and the North Division. All yet to be determined, but we do know that the Eagles are coming next season and will play in the Pacific. What we don’t know is if they will play 76 like the rest of the AHL or 68 like the California teams and the Tuscon Roadrunners.
Oh, in case you were wondering what happened with the Avalanche’s current AHL affiliate the San Antonio Rampage, the St. Louis Blues announced that they have signed the Rampage up as their primary affiliate beginning in 2018-19.
Still waters run deep in Pittsburgh and Wilkes-Barre.
More news as it comes this week, if not, check me out Friday for your Penguins / Phantoms Gameday setup.
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