Chirps from Center Ice

(In case you missed it from this morning: Philippe Dupuis has himself a new home)

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Welcome to the offseason Thursday blog update. Our neighbors to the south have been very active these past couple of weeks. They have:

1) A new coach in Mike Haviland. But you knew about this last week.

2) Jeff Taffe returning. You knew about this a few weeks ago too.

3) Joel Rechlicz will be back next year as well. Let’s hope we see more of this with he and Steve MacIntyre next season.

4) Dane Byers will also return. Byers was a trade deadline acquisition from Oklahoma City last season. He will be joined by Kelly Cup Champion T.J. Syner as well.

5) Not returning is Dany Sabourin. The veteran Bears goaltender is eyeing Finland as his next destination. Since The Great Sabou is so beloved in the Wyoming Valley, something worth keeping an eye on, as well as who the Bears will select to backup Philipp Grubauer next season.

6) Also not returning for the Bears will be assistant coach Troy Mann, who took a coaching job with the ECHL’s Bakersfield Condors.

Elsewhere….

The Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena will look different from the inside in the Fall.

Wilkes-Barre has been pretty quiet. Other than the Alex Grant news earlier this week and the six guaranteed dates that were announced last week. That’s all that has come out of Coal Street in the past week. On the six dates, we are probably opening on the road with the home opener on October 12 and are definitely playing on my birthday in December.

Here are the season ending SendToNews Highlights of the Year.

The NHL Draft is this Sunday. I am no expert in this venue. I’ll probably drop a blurb Sunday night or Monday on the haul that Pittsburgh got. I’ll continue to keep my eye on the Europe wire for anyone who bolts overseas and keep my eyes peeled for any big East Division trades or news.

Free agency opens July 5. Planning something big for coverage that day. Just haven’t ironed out the details yet. Stay tuned.

We interrupt the severe lack of blogging to bring some news which has broke since this past Thursday:

— There’s a new team in town. They are the Utica Comets, a Vancouver Canucks affiliate. Read all about it here, and check out the logo and jerseys here. One thing that was not announced was in what conference / division the Comets will play. Although you can probably bet on the Penguins facing them a few times this upcoming season.

— The Bears have re-signed Jeff Taffe. Taffe had an arrangement to play in Sweden next season but decided to come back to play another year in Chocolatetown. Taffe and his wife had twins last October, so the culture shock of taking newborn children overseas with you to play hockey probably weighed heavily in Taffe’s decision to return to Hershey for another season. Can’t say as though I blame him.

— Dylan Reese is the first Penguin to jump the pond and sign elsewhere. Looks like Amur Khabarovsk is the destination in the KHL. The 2013 Offseason Moves List has been updated accordingly.

— The Syracuse Crunch are still alive after winning last night 3-2 in Game 4. Here are my words for Bob Howard’s blog. I would be lying if I told you I expected a sweep in the series. Game 5 is Saturday night in Western Michigan.

I’m off to go jump in my pool. To pay tribute to the newest AHL team, I may do a few cannonballs uh, cometballs.

There isn’t really much to write about after the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins season ended last Saturday. The exit interviews are over, the team has disbanded and are headed home.

So here I sit, twiddling my thumbs and watching the world go by.

There’s a couple of topics that happened since the last time I blogged. If you already knew about these, I’m sorry. I’ll try to keep up the blog regularly as the content allows. At least once a week, why not Thursday’s?

— Jeff Zatkoff was the only call-up from Wilkes-Barre on Monday. Before he left town, he talked with Mike O’Brien about the season that was.

— On the other side of the goal post, Mike O’Brien caught up with Brad Thiessen in this podcast.

— Mark French, late of the Hershey Bears, is off to Russia to coach another kind of Bears.

— Syracuse gets Grand Rapids in the Calder Cup Finals, which start Saturday in Central New York.

— Speaking of, you can watch the Calder Cup Finals for FREE on AHLLive.com using the promo code “CALDER2013”

— Finally, I don’t know if you have noticed, but the 2013 Offseason Moves tab is up and active at the top of the page. I plan on keeping this updated as the summer wears on. If you spot any errors or omission, please let me know in some form of social media.

See you next Thursday?

The Penguins announced today the additions of Olli Maatta and Scott Harrington to ATOs today. They are both defensemen and both played junior hockey with the London Knights.

And that’s all I know about them. Wait, I know that Harrington was in Pittsburgh’s camp before and played in the Black and Gold Game two seasons ago.

Jonathan had more on them and, oh yeah, the Eastern Conference Finals goings on with the Syracuse Crunch. Maatta and Harrington practiced today. Derrick Pouliot is on his way.

Jonathan and I disagree about either Pouliot (once he signs) Harrington or Maatta playing a game. He thinks so, and has pretty good logic behind it.  I don’t think so, reasoning they have an entire offseason and whole first half of next year to learn and ease into the pro game. Look, putting up video game numbers is nice playing against players in your own age bracket. But playing against men, professionals, in the biggest stage in the AHL right now? I don’t think that’s a risk I want to take.

But that’s just me. Here’s a poll:

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Up north, MVP Tyler Johnson’s status for Game 3 is up in the air and the Penguins are apparently in the head of Radko Gudas.

Gameday for Game 3 will be here Wednesday at 3 p.m.

Let’s Go Pens!

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Halfway there.

The Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins have just completed an improbable comeback, stunning the regular season champion Providence Bruins and completing a “reverse sweep” in winning four straight games after being down three games to none. The Penguins became the first team in AHL history to win Game 7 on the road after being down 0-3 in a series. A remarkable, if not inconceivable, accomplishment.

However, the battle is only half over.

Standing in the way of the Calder Cup Finals are the Syracuse Crunch, who, haven’t lost a game in the postseason. They swept the Portland Pirates in Round One and then did the same thing to the Northeast Division Springfield Falcons in four games in Round Two.

The Penguins were 3-5 against the Crunch during the regular season. The Crunch shut out the Penguins three times, with three different goaltenders. It seemed, at times, that the Crunch just had the Penguins number this season.

The Crunch are led by Tyler Johnson, Brett Connolly and Ondrej Palat. Johnson is your MVP of the AHL. The trio have combined for 33% of the Crunch regular season goal scoring and a sum +71 combined!

With the Tampa Bay Lightning’s affiliation swap from Norfolk to Syracuse this off season  a lot of what is leftover from the team that won the Calder Cup makes up this Syracuse Crunch team. That guy Trevor Smith plays for us now and G Dustin Tokarski was traded to Montreal this season, but G Cedrick Desjardins is equally as formidable.

The people of Syracuse expected this unit to do exactly what they have accomplished to date. East Division Championship? Check. MVP of the AHL? Check. Sweep first round series? Check. Sweep second round series? Check. Sweep third round series?

Not so fast my friend. Here is the breakdown:

Forwards

The Crunch had ten forwards with ten or more goals during the regular season. The Penguins had only seven. The aforementioned Johnson, Connolly and Palat collectively were 81-99-180. The Penguins top three scorers were Chad Kolarik (31-37-68) Trevor Smith (23-31-54) and Riley Holzapfel (21-30-51) who are collectively 75-98-173. It actually isn’t that much of a difference on paper, but given the fact that the Crunch have three more forwards than the Penguins that have scored 10 or more goals, the advantage has to go the Crunch’s way in this department.

Advantage: Syracuse

Defense

The Crunch were tenth in the AHL in goals allowed in the regular season at 2.64 GA/game. The Pens led the league in goals allowed during the regular season at 2.34 GA/game. The Crunch relied more heavily on offense to win them games. That league leading 3.25 goals per game stat tells that story.

In the postseason, the Pens rank 4th in defense only allowing 2.20 / goals a game. The Crunch have only allowed 2.14 goals against in the postseason. The Penguins, after falling in an 0-3 series hole, only allowed the Providence Bruins to score two goals in four games.

Individually, take Mark Barberio’s 8-34-42 out of the equation and you have an even match up on defense. Looking at the numbers, it appears that all of the Crunch blueliners chip in offensively and put up decent enough numbers.

Advantage: Penguins, slightly, based on regular season. Penguins running away in the postseason.

Goaltending

The Crunch will rely heavily on Cedrick Desjardins. His backup is Pat Nagle, who spent all of the regular season in the ECHL. The Penguins have a 1A-1B option in goal. Although, after this historic series with Providence, Brad Thiessen is taking this Penguins team all the way.

Advantage: Penguins

Intangibles

The Crunch were slightly ahead of the curve on power play this year, ranking in at 12th, succeeding 17.4% of the time. The Penguins power play floundered in bottom third of the league for the most part all season before settling in at 22nd overall. However, in the postseason, the Penguins power play brought them back from the brink of elimination and sit at the top of the AHL in postseason play at 25.5%. That all said, I don’t think that a game in this series is going to be too heavily decided on special teams but if if does it’s still a toss up in my opinion.

The Penguins had far and away the best penalty kill all season. The Crunch showed themselves well, settling for 9th, but the Penguins get the edge in the penalty kill department.

The Crunch were a ridiculous 35-3-4-2 when scoring the first goal, best in the league. A fast start usually lead to a great finish for Syracuse this season. The Penguins were 7-2 in overtime this season while the Crunch were a very unimpressive 3-6. However, the Crunch are 2-0 in overtime in playoffs currently and the Penguins 2-1.

Rob Zettler pilots this Crunch team. He is the big unknown because Penguins Head Coach John Hynes hasn’t matched wits with him this season. Jon Cooper was “called up” to replace Guy Boucher after he was fired as head coach of the parent Lightning. I am going with Hynes here on the fact that he has guided this Penguins team to the second round of the playoffs for the third consecutive year and now past the second round in thrilling turnaround fashion. His adjustments as the series with Providence wore on turned the tide in favor of the Penguins. He and his staff broke down every.single.shift from Game 6.

Social Media Coverage:

For the Penguins:

Twitter: @WBSPenguins
Radio: @MikeOBrienWBS // @TGracePens
Beat: @CVBombulie
Facebook: /WilkesBarreScrantonPenguins
Fan Blogger: @nafsnep

For the Crunch:

Twitter: @SyracuseCrunch
Radio: @Dan_DUva
Facebook: /syracusecrunch
Beat: @syrhockey
Fan Blog: @Allovimo of Chairman How’s Glorious Army

A lot of teams were obliterated by last years Norfolk Admirals team, a squad that tore through the final four and a half months of the AHL season last year. That core moved to Syracuse. This current team sustained the success that was left over the year before. But the luster seemed to wear off as the season wore on. Yes, the Crunch won the East Division, the toughest division in the AHL. But the Binghamton Senators stayed in lockstep with the Crunch all season long and finished one point behind Syracuse then were swept away by the Penguins in the first round. The Crunch needed overtime twice to beat the Portland Pirates. Credit the resolve of the Crunch to never give up the fight, but what were they doing there in the first place? Then they dismantled a very solid Springfield team by sweeping them. However, I don’t think the Penguins are scared of the Crunch at all. That said, anyone wearing blue and white for the Crunch have the same mutual feelings for the Penguins. I see a dogfight brewing…

Prediction: Penguins in six. Goaltending, coaching and overall team defense is going to be the difference in this series. Yes, the Crunch may jump out to a lead in a game or a lead in the series. No, that won’t faze the Penguins.

Gameday for Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals will be up here on the blog Saturday afternoon at 3 p.m.