Chirps from Center Ice

A fan blog about the AHL's Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins

Category Archives: The AHL

2016-17 AHL Schedule Released

Comments Off on 2016-17 AHL Schedule Released Posted by on August 22, 2016

Time to whip out the planners and block off time from work, the 2016-17 AHL Schedule is here!

As tradition here on the blog, with the release of the schedule, comes a question and answer session. I answer all the pertinent questions regarding the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins playing schedule.

So here you go….

Question 1: Who do the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins play first this season?

Answer: That would be the Hartford Wolf Pack on Saturday October 15, the Penguins home opener.

Question 2: Any Western Conference flavor on the menu this year?

Answer: LOL, no. All Eastern Conference teams again this year.

Question 3: What does the divisional breakdown look like against Bridgeport, Hartford, Hershey, Lehigh Valley, Providence and Springfield?

Answer: 12 games against Lehigh Valley and Hershey, Six against Springfield, Bridgeport and Providence and eight against Hartford. Split home and away.

Question 4: What is the longest road trip? What about home stand?

Answer: Longest road trip of the season for the Penguins is two separate seven dates in a row away from the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza. January 8 through the 2oth, then again in February, from the 17th to March 5th.

The longest home stand for the Penguins is six straight home dates in February, from February 3 to the 14.

Question 5: What about the remainder of the schedule?

The remainder of the schedule breakdown for the Penguins against in-Conference, non-divisional opponents is as follows; six games against Binghamton and Syracuse, four against Utica and St. John’s and two against Toronto, Albany and Rochester, all split home and away.

Question 6: How many three games in three nights?

Answer: Last year the Penguins had eight. This year, the Penguins have the same amount, including three straight weekends of three in three action at the end of the season from March 24 to April 9, 2017.

Question 7: I am a visual learner. Show me a chart of daily and monthly breakdowns.

Answer: Here you go.

Home Road Total
Monday 0 2 2
Tuesday 4 0 4
Wednesday 5 5 10
Thursday 0 0 0
Friday 12 10 22
Saturday 14 12 26
Sunday 3 9 12

And the Monthly…

Home Road Total
October 5 2 7
November 5 7 12
December 6 6 12
January 5 9 14
February 6 5 11
March 6 6 12
April 5 3 8

Question 8: Any kids games?

Answer: Kids games are by definition games that start in the morning. The Penguins don’t have any morning start games. The earliest the Penguins play a game is 1 p.m. on Martin Luther King Day which is Monday, January 16, 2017 up in Syracuse.

Question 9: Where is the All-Star Classic at again this season?

Answer: Not far away, actually. The League announced a couple of months ago that the Lehigh Valley Phantoms would be the host city for this season. The event will take place January 28 through January 30, 2017 down at PPL Center.

Question 10: Are the Penguins playing in any special venues this season?

Answer: No. All home games will be played at the Mohegan Sun Arena or the home arena of the opponent.

Question 11: What is the Penguins theme this season?

Answer: Live for the Moment. You can click here to be taken to a page where you may download the schedule onto your mobile device.

Question 12: Anything else I need to know?

Answer: Penguins are really pushing the Tuesday games in an effort to bust up the three in three. Whether or not Tuesday evening home games will be a big draw or not remains to be seen. Also, the massive amount of Friday and Saturday home games (26 in total) is a real push to get people in seats.

Pens play their New Years Eve game on the road this season up in Binghamton, a 6:05 p.m. start up there.

There are nine days this season on which all 30 AHL teams are in action: Sat., Nov. 12; Sat., Nov. 26; Sat., Dec. 3; Sat., Jan. 7; Fri., Jan. 13; Sat., Jan. 28; Fri., Mar. 17; Sat., Mar. 18; and Fri., Apr. 14.

–

Won’t be long now! I can start my previews for all 30 teams and look for schedule boxes on the left hand sude of the blog to start rolling out, perhaps as soon as this week with the next three games for Wilkes-Barre, Pittsburgh and Wheeling!

The AHL, WBS

Schedule Coming…

Comments Off on Schedule Coming… Posted by on August 22, 2016

–

Back later to find out how many times the Penguins play the Bears, Phantoms, and every one else in the division and conference and the annual gripe about not having any Western Conference teams on the the schedule.

The AHL, WBS

Di Pauli Signs 8/19

Comments Off on Di Pauli Signs 8/19 Posted by on August 19, 2016

It was announced Friday morning that free agent forward Thomas Di Pauli signed a two year entry level contract with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Di Pauli, originally a Washington Capitals draft pick, never signed with the Caps and became a free agent this week.

He’s 5’11, 197 pounds. Speedy forward with good hands. Played on Notre Dame with Bryan Rust which, depending on what website you do to to get your hockey projections, plays the same style.

Di Pauli went 22-39-61 over his last two seasons with Notre Dame, so he knows how to get his name on the scoresheet.

If he doesn’t make the big club out of camp, you can expect to see Di Pauli here in Wilkes-Barre, probably getting booed by Bears fans who were excited to see him play for them next season if he didn’t make the Capitals roster. Di Pauli’s presence alone will provide a boost for what was looking like an offensively starved AHL Penguins team. You can only keep so many bodies in the NHL, so if Di Pauli sticks, another body gets sent down. It’s a win-win for Wilkes-Barre regardless.

Elsewhere, Lehigh Valley signed goaltender Mark Dekanich Thursday. Dekanich hasn’t been the same since his All-Star days with Milwaukee a couple years ago. He spent much of last season with South Carolina in the ECHL and I expect him to do the same with Reading in the ECHL.

Our ECHL affiliate in Wheeling announced Wednesday that they have extended their affiliation agreement with Pittsburgh and subsequently Wilkes-Barre for two more seasons, out to 2018.

No AHL schedule yet. Probably early next week, based off of tweets from some teams that I have seen. Only question that remains is how many times we see Hershey and Lehigh Valley, everyone else in the division and everyone else in the conference, because we aren’t going to play anyone from the Western Conference. You get your hopes up for variety and new teams only to be disappointed year after year with the same old, same old.

Back next week to break it all down.

Pittsburgh, The AHL, WBS

Lively New Livery

1 Comment Posted by on August 8, 2016

Coal Street teased the following this morning…

–

…which is good for summertime blogging I suppose. I’m enjoying my summer and the warm weather along with the pool and cigar time. Good to keep the fingers sharp and the content on the blog fresh.

Later that day, the Pens announced a new look…

–

Release here. Remember with the new rule change this year it will be whites at home till Christmas than darks at home thereafter.

No word on if there will be alternate jerseys and what those will look like. There always is but there was no word in todays release.

For visual learners…

–

Details on when and where you can get these new colors in the press release.

One other note that was out there today was on an ex-Penguin. Eric Hartzell is back playing in America and today signed with the Fort Wayne Komets of the ECHL.

More news to come this week.

Not AHL, WBS

Leach Defects 8/3

Comments Off on Leach Defects 8/3 Posted by on August 4, 2016

With the announcement earlier this week of the assistant coaches named to the bench with Clark Donatelli manning the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins ship for 2016-17, it wasn’t a matter of if Jay Leach would land on his feet with another team, but when.

It happened Thursday. What was wildly reported on for weeks was made official. Leach is heading to Providence to serve as assistant coach with Trent Whitfield. Leach and Whitfield will serve as assistants to Kevin Dean.

It’s a bit of a monkey see, monkey do bit with the P-Bruins, who are the second team this week to name two assistant coaches. I think that you will see that become the norm. Your ideal situation is to run your AHL bench like you do in the NHL.

Kevin Dean on Whitfield and Leach as told to Mark Divver of The Providence Journal…

–

Back home, Mike O’Brien and Nick Hart sat down with new Penguins assistant coach J.D. Forrest and podcaster about it. You can check that out and give it a listen here.

Enjoy August. Remember to apply sunscreen.

The AHL, WBS

No, You Haven’t Missed Anything

3 Comments Posted by on July 28, 2016

It’s the middle of summer. The Top 100 AHL Free Agent Big Board and Beyond is pretty well picked over with players signing with teams. There is nothing out there in the hockey world that is worth noting. You haven’t missed anything.

Barry Goers was the Friday re-signing by the Penguins back on July 8. Since then, nothing but tumbleweeds.

Even the AHL is running retread news on its Twitter feed this morning….

–

Possible news includes a new assistant coach on Coal Street….

–

Down 81, ex-Penguin Reid Cashman was named assistant coach of the Hershey Bears filling the role of Bryan Helmer who took the position of VP of Hockey Operations for the departing Doug Yingst.

That’s about it. We are probably about five weeks away from an AHL schedule. If / when Coal Street makes an announcement on a new assistant coach, I’ll have a blog here. But otherwise, go outside and enjoy the warm weather.

The AHL, WBS

Thursday Notebook 7/7

Comments Off on Thursday Notebook 7/7 Posted by on July 7, 2016

Couple more things of note this week as, for the beginning of July, it’s been busy.

The run on signings by Coal Street continue. After announcing Casey DeSmith on Tuesday, the Penguins announced they have re-signed Adam Krause on Wednesday and Sahir Gill on Thursday.

Down Interstate 81, Hershey announced the re-signings of Dustin Gazley and Ryan Bourque to AHL deals. In addition, they announced they have signed G Parker Milner and D Hubert Labrie to AHL deals. Milner had gaudy numbers playing in the ECHL for the Missouri Mavericks last season, the Mavericks were a very good team. Labrie has bounced around from team to team and is a third pair defender. Hershey also announced they have re-signed Joey Leach and Dominic Monardo. Monardo was with the Bears in their playoff run.

Pittsburgh signed Garrett Wilson on Thursday. Wilson, who was not ranked in the Top 100 of the AHL Big Board, played 29 NHL games last season with Florida. He had 38 points with San Antonio in 2014-15. Expect him to be the first or second call-up for Pittsburgh next season once the inevitable injury bug starts biting the Stanley Cup Champions.

Ex-Penguin Matt Carkner announced his retirement.

The annual Board of Governors meeting wrapped up this week in Hilton Head, South Carolina. With this, normally comes realignment and rules changes. This year was no different. From the release, the divisions look like this heading into 2016-17:

–

Penguins remain in the same division with the same divisional foes, sans Portland, who is now Springfield, who is now Tucson, playing 68 games in the Pacific Division.

If I was running things, I would keep all 68 game teams (every team in the Pacific except San Antonio and Texas) in their own division, I’d move San Antonio and Texas to the Central and move Lake Erie to the North Division and Charlotte to the East. But that’s just me editorializing.

Other rule changes include,

Playing Schedule/Standings 

• The 2016-17 regular season will consist of 1,116 games, played between Oct. 12 and Apr. 16. All teams will play 76 games each with the exception Bakersfield, Ontario, San Diego, San Jose, Stockton and Tucson, who will play 68 games each. The full league schedule will be announced later this summer.

• Teams will receive two points for a win and one point for an overtime or shootout loss. The top four teams in each division ranked by points percentage (points earned divided by points available) will qualify for the 2017 Calder Cup Playoffs.

• The 2017 Calder Cup Playoffs will feature a divisional playoff format, leading to conference finals and ultimately the Calder Cup Finals. The division semifinals are best-of-five series; all subsequent rounds are best-of-seven.

• Teams will wear light jerseys at home until the Christmas break, and dark jerseys at home after the Christmas break.

Rule 46 (“Fighting”)/Rule 23 (“Game Misconducts”) 
• Players who enter into a fight prior to, at, or immediately following the drop of the puck for a faceoff will be assessed an automatic game misconduct in addition to other penalties assessed.

• During the regular season, any player who incurs his 10th fighting major shall be suspended automatically for one (1) game. For each subsequent fighting major up to 13, the player shall also be suspended automatically for one (1) game.

• During the regular season, any player who incurs his 14th fighting major shall be suspended automatically for two (2) games. For each subsequent fighting major, the player shall also be suspended automatically for two (2) games.

• In any instance where the opposing player was assessed an instigator penalty, the fighting major shall not count towards the player’s total for this rule.

Rule 82 (“Icing”)
• In addition to not being permitted to make player substitutions, the offending team on an icing violation also may not use its team time-out.

Rule 1.10 (“Ice Cleaning”)
• The ice cleaning procedures used during promotional timeouts will also be used prior to overtime during the regular season, replacing the “dry scrape.”

In layman’s terms:

– No more crossover. The top four teams in each division make playoffs, based off of percentage. This will have no bearing on the Eastern Conference teams since they all play the same amount of games.

– White jerseys at home until Christmas then black, or dark jerseys, from there on out. They do this in the ECHL. I think it is a dumb rule and the Leagues meddling with things better left alone.

– No more time outs after icings. Another dumb rule. Teams will find a way around this. A goaltenders pad may fall off. A skate blade may fall off. A stick will break. Something.

– No more dry scrape. This I like. There was no standard from AHL arena to AHL arena on how exactly to clean the ice after overtime. Some places it would last up to 5 minutes. Now, the off-ice crew will simply shovel away the snow in the attacking zones like they do at the 14, 10 and 6 minute stoppages during the period. You’ll be in and out of games in a jiffy.

– The other rule involves convoluted words regarding fighting. Gone are the staged fights. If you do that you are thrown out of the game. Once you fight ten times, you are suspended a game. Do it again up to 13 times, and you are suspended again. After your fourteenth fight and every fight after that, you are suspended for two games. If you are in a fight and the guy gets an instigator that fights you, that fight does not count towards the ten that gets you sat a game.

If the League is going to trip over itself sideways to implement these rules to curb fighting, it should simply just be banned. Fight once and get an automatic ten games. Make it simple. You obviously want to eliminate this aspect of the game, so simply come out and do it, rather than confusing the common fan that doesn’t understand why staged fights are gone.

I’ll have updates to the AHL Big Board and my 2016 Offseason Moves List later this evening. Have a nice weekend if there isn’t a Friday Coal Street Signing worth firing the blog up over.

Pittsburgh, The AHL, WBS

← Older posts

Newer posts →