Chirps from Center Ice

Brief note here that Andrew Ebbett and Chris Conner are on waivers currently, they have until noon Monday to clear.

Elsewhere, a trio of players with Wilkes-Barre ties are on the Iowa Wild training camp roster. They are G John Curry, D Carl Sneep and F Warren Peters. Peters completes the 2013 Offseason Moves List, which gets its final update today.

The Fourth Annual Chirps from Center Ice AHL Previews begin tonight at midnight. Two divisions Monday, then a division a day at noon each day thereafter. Here’s a look at the schedule:

Midnight Monday: West Division
Noon Monday: Midwest Division
Noon Tuesday: North Division
Noon Wednesday: Atlantic Division
Noon Thursday: Northeast Division
Noon Friday: East Division

Before that though, Pens / Bears close out their respective preseasons at 5:05 this afternoon. I’ll have a brief recap here later this evening.

News from the day was that Pittsburgh sent Zach Sill, Brian Dumoulin and Harry Zolnierczyk to Wilkes-Barre.

Zolnierczyk will have to clear waivers. We will know by noon tomorrow if anyone claims him.

It will take at least that long for my mind to clear from the news that Zolnierczyk could actually skate in Wilkes-Barre. I didn’t include him in the 2013 Offseason Moves List and expected him to stay up in the NHL especially with the departure of Matt Cooke this summer.

Jonathan had words on the news and a preview of Pittsburgh’s opening night roster. He also reset the depth chart.

Elsewhere….

Looking over the fence at the neighbors, certified WBS killer Tomas Kundratek cleared waivers today and was assigned to the Hershey Bears.

The Portland Pirates will be playing all of their games this season about an hour north in Lewiston, Maine due to building issues in Cumberland County. The plan was for the Pirates to play all of the games in Lewiston until January while the Civic Center was being renovated, but the Pirates and the Board of Trustees couldn’t see eye to eye on a bunch of issues so instead of starting the season with the uncertainty of where the Pirates will play in 2014, they made the announcement that they will play the entire season in Lewiston.

A couple of home dates were jumbled for the Pirates with the announcement, but that doesn’t affect the Penguins. Wilkes-Barre travels to Lewiston on January 18 @ 7 p.m.

More tomorrow with the recap of Pens-Amerks Round II Friday night.

With the start of WBS training camp now hours away instead of many days, today marks the last Tuesday things will be pretty quiet in the world of AHL hockey.

Here’s whats going on leading up to the start of camp this weekend….

—> Cuts. Pittsburgh made a few today. Paul Thompson, Tom Kostopoulos, Brian Gibbons, Dominik Uher, Clark Seymour, Reid McNeill, Nick D’Agostino were sent to Wilkes-Barre. Pittsburgh also sent guys back to their junior teams.

—> They also signed J-S Dea, who impressed at rookie camp. He’ll go back to his junior team.

—> Pittsburgh lost in their second preseason game to the Detroit Red Wings Monday night 4-1.

—> Here’s Jonathan’s updates on a few things from the past couple of days.

—> Here’s Seth Rorabaugh again catching up with not-so-newcomer Chris Conner.

—> A look at the AHL preseason schedule.

—> In what alternative world do we live in when something like this happens? Take a listen.

—> Mike Carman, late of Hershey, tweeted Monday that he is headed to Wilkes-Barre. Here are a couple of tweets on him from me and others…

–

I’m sure I will have more this week with other Wilkes-Barre announcements.

The first day of training camp in Pittsburgh wrapped up today. Here’s a clearinghouse of links for your eyes:

— Jonathan Bombulie is on the ground in Pittsburgh and checks in with this entry.

— The venerable Eric Majeski had a note on Day 1 training camp, complete with lines.

It is widely known that Pittsburgh is about a million dollars over the salary cap. It’s also pretty common knowledge that the lines in Pittsburgh are about 90% set. So, what do you do? Trade a player? Send a player on a one way contract down? Demote Simon Despres or Beau Bennett? I don’t have an answer to this. Selfishly, send Despres / Bennett down, if you aren’t going to play them regularly. Time, always tells.

Oh, here’s an article on Tom Kostopoulos from Seth Rorabaugh from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Elsewhere…

— Individual tickets for all Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins home games go on sale September 20. 

— Scott Darling, who backed up Brad Thiessen in Game 3 vs. Binghamton in the Calder Cup Playoffs this past Spring, has signed with the Milwaukee Admirals. I have updated the 2013 Offseason Moves List.

Finally, the annual Chirps from Center Ice AHL Previews are 90% done. I just need the “case for” and “case against” each team. Tentative release looks like this:

– September 29: Last preseason game vs. Hershey
– September 30: West and Midwest Division Preview
– October 1: North Division Preview
– October 2: Atlantic Division Preview
– October 3: Northeast Division Preview
– October 4: AHL Opening Night // East Division Preview
– October 5: Start of regular season for WBS Penguins, @ Bridgeport.

If Day 2 Friday warrants a blog post, I’ll be back tomorrow with an entry.

Pittsburgh opens training camp tomorrow and today published their training camp roster. The only player on the list not familiar to the Penguin fan is that of Jean-Sebastian Dea. Dea had a really good Rookie Tournament this past weekend, so his invite should not come as a surprise.

Jonathan had a tweet today about how there be no room at the NHL inn for fringe guys.

Here’s a video of Tom Kuhnhackl putting a puck from this past weekend through a net.

Finally, the AHL has a big announcement planned for Tuesday, which I am 99.99% positive has something to do with the AHL All-Star Classic going to St. John’s, Newfoundland this February.

Regardless, I should have something to blog about Tuesday regarding that and the goings on in Pittsburgh. Check back tomorrow.