Chirps from Center Ice

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

Category Archives: WBS

Big Board Wednesday – Other Stuff

Comments Off on Big Board Wednesday – Other Stuff Posted by on June 26, 2018

My massive summertime project is completed. The 2018 AHL Top 100 Free Agents and Beyond Big Board will be released here on the blog Wednesday afternoon at 5 pm. As of now, there are a total of 288 names that are going to be included in the list Wednesday, barring anyone signing between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday at 5.

It’ll get pinned to the top of the blog once my next blog piece comes out, so if if you visit once a week, just scroll down.

In other news, Coal Street announced a home opener and five other guaranteed dates as well as the logo the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins will use to commemorate their 20th AHL season played in Wilkes-Barre:

Full release here. I would be fine if they punted on Sunday afternoon home games entirely, I detest them.

Anyway, see you back here Wednesday evening after 5 for the AHL Big Board.

The AHL, WBS

Qualifying Offers, Czuczman Re-Signed, Other News 6/25

1 Comment Posted by on June 25, 2018

Today was the deadline for NHL teams to send qualifying offers to Restricted Free Agents. The Pittsburgh Penguins sent qualifying offers to everyone familiar with Wilkes-Barre in the past few seasons, except for Frank Corrado.

Corrado was acquired from Toronto as a piece in the Eric Fehr and Steve Oleksy trade back in March 2017. He  never lived up to they hype that came with him in the Toronto media. He only appeared in a handful of NHL games for Pittsburgh, didn’t really do anything memorable in his time with the AHL club and was injured in the blowout loss in Rochester earlier this year and never returned.

Pittsburgh also did not qualify Tom Kuhnhackl and Vincent Dunn, which was a throw in piece in the Derrick Brassard trade earlier in the season.

Pittsburgh re-signed Kevin Czuczman for another season as well as Daniel Sprong and Dominik Simon. I expect Sprong and Simon to challenge each other for playing time in the NHL and will be surprised if either play another game in the AHL. For Czuczman, its a big signing in that he was a key piece here in Wilkes-Barre. He will of course be looking to break through and stay in Pittsburgh come the fall but if not, it will be nice to have him here in Wilkes-Barre. I had Czuczman as the top player available in the PIT / WBS organization for my AHL Big Board, coming later this week.

Pittsburgh also announced their roster for their development camp. Interesting in this roster group is that there is not a single player invited to that camp that played in Wilkes-Barre last season.

Troy Mann was fired as the coach of the Hershey Bears. A good coach that coached a team that played thin but tough last year as Hershey finished dead last in the Atlantic Division. Unacceptable if you are a fan of the Chocolate and White, but since you can’t fire the players, Mann was the one that got the ax at the end of the season. Well, he was hired today by the Belleville Senators, the AHL affiliate of the Ottawa Senators who also played at or near the bottom of the North Division. Mann will have his work cut out for him in 2018-19, but he is the right man for the job, no pun intended.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have to finish up the AHL Big Board. Look for it, barring any last minute hangups, Wednesday. I will have a blog post announcing a date and time as sort of an advisory.

Pittsburgh, The AHL, WBS

TK’s Back! (Sort Of)

Comments Off on TK’s Back! (Sort Of) Posted by on June 20, 2018

When Tom Kostopoulos retired at the conclusion of the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins season at the hands of the Charlotte Checkers in a three game sweep in the Atlantic Division Semifinals, the question became, “what’s next?” regarding the Penguins captain and Wilkes-Barre legend.

The answer was discovered today.

The Pittsburgh Penguins announced Wednesday afternoon that Kostopoulous as well as Andy Chiodo have been hired in player development roles. Chiodo will serve as development coach for goaltenders.

Positive move for Coal Street. You keep a popular guy like Kostopoulos around and a likable fellow like Chiodo mentoring the next generation of goaltenders. Players genuinely wanted to win a Calder Cup for Kostopoulos in his final season.

Here is Tom on Tom with more…

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NHL Draft is this weekend. I will probably run a recap of the Penguins draft picks if I get time Sunday.

AHL Big Board is coming along and will be out sometime next week. I will probably run a quick blog post advising of the time the big project drops to give people advance warning. So, stay tuned.

Pittsburgh, WBS

Penguins Find New Voice

1 Comment Posted by on June 11, 2018

The Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins will have a new, yet familiar voice handling play by play duties in their 20th season in October 2018.

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Coal Street announced Monday morning the logical and best man for the job, installing Nick Hart as the new play-by-play broadcaster/media relations director for the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins.

In addition, Jason Spess was named manager of team services. Spess served as assistant general manager of the Toyota SportsPlex for the past two years and was an assistant coach with the Wheeling Nailers last season.

From the release…

“Mike did a tremendous job during his seven year tenure in Wilkes-Barre, not only behind the microphone, but behind the scenes handling the team services functions for the club,” said CEO Jeff Barrett.  “We are also happy to hand these new duties to Nick and Jason, who have worked tirelessly for the team over the past several years.”

O’Brien is leaving to pursue other opportunities in Boston, Massachusetts.

In other news…

— Gage Quinney signed an NHL deal with his hometown Vegas Golden Knights. If he doesn’t stick in the NHL, he’ll skate in the AHL with the Chicago Wolves next season.

— Tom Sestito is moving on.

https://twitter.com/TomSestito23/status/1005566476315656192

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I do not necessarily think that Sestito is done playing hockey. We will have to wait and see where Tom ends up.

Finally, the 2018 AHL Free Agent Big Board is being constructed and again this year I am going to crowd source this. If you are interested in contributing, please contact me either on the blog or through Twitter, @nafsnep – many hands will do for clean and light work.

That’s all for now.

The AHL, WBS

Updates 5/31

Comments Off on Updates 5/31 Posted by on May 31, 2018

Getting closer to the start of summer, there have been a few things rolling around that don’t get a whole blog post dedicated to it, but have built up enough to warrant one now. In sum,

— Pittsburgh signed Juuso Riikola to an entry level contract. He’s a Finnish defenseman. Undrafted, steady handed puck mover was second on his Liiga team in points last year.

— The guys from the Pittsburgh faction of The Athletic had a feature piece on him that you can, as long as you are a subscriber, can check out here.

— Lukas Bengtsson made it official and signed in the SHL for next season. It’s a three year contract. Don’t be surprised if the Penguins simply protect his North American rights going forward, but his days are done on Coal Street.

— There is a new ECHL team in St. Johns, Newfoundland and they have a kick ass logo. They will be a Toronto affiliate.

— Etienne Marcoux, who was one of 167 goaltenders the Penguins used at the position last season, earned himself an AHL deal with the Laval Rocket.

— Wheeling has a new head coach. His name is Mark Dennehy. He has ties with Pittsburgh head coach Mike Sullivan. A great hire.

— The AHL extended Dave Andrews through 2020.

— Ex-Penguin Bobby Farnham re-signed with the Springfield Thunderbirds.

— Mama, it’s those men again. Another Athletic piece on Jordy Bellerive, who is a man against boys with Lethbridge in the Western Hockey League. He may make NHL team out fo camp in the fall, but if he doesn’t, he will need to go back to the Hurricanes because he’s too young to play in the AHL.

Hitting on the news, I don’t see Riikola coming over here to play 50+ games in the AHL personally, but if he wants to learn the North American game he may have to….Dennehy is a good hire because he did more with less at tiny Merrimack College which was a small fish in the big pond known as college hockey in the Northeast….There are a lot of things I don’t like about the AHL (teams playing 68 games, linesmen who are in over their heads on a nightly basis, a training ground for referees who are cast in a bigger spotlight who are sometimes in the same boat, the high price of AHL Live, etc.) but the one constant is Andrews and his vision has catapulted the AHL into the second best brand of hockey in North America and some would say the world. The League will be at 31 teams in 2018-19 with the inclusion of the Colorado Eagles and may get to 32 if NHL Seattle is granted a franchise, so what better man to keep running the ship than Andrews. It was said that he was close to retiring, but he was talked into staying around for a little while longer. The League will be better for it.

Toronto swept Lehigh Valley in four games and Texas dispatched pesky Rockford in six. These two will play for the Calder Cup starting Saturday in Toronto.

That’s pretty much it. When news builds up on me I’ll drop another post in, but for now enjoy the warm weather.

Pittsburgh, The AHL, WBS, Wheeling

2018-19 Schedule Matrix Announced

1 Comment Posted by on May 11, 2018

I think Hershey was the first team to announce a schedule matrix of opponents for 2018-19 on Thursday. Other teams followed suit slowly. Well, Friday it was the Penguins turn.

No real changes from last year but for the addition of the Cleveland Monsters to the schedule docket. Wilkes-Barre will play every Eastern Conference team at least once and also go back to Grand Rapids, Rockford and Milwaukee.

Breakdown goes as follows….

Opponent Home Road   Opponent Home Road
Binghamton 2 2 Milwaukee 1 1
Bridgeport 4 4 Providence 3 3
Charlotte 2 2 Rochester 1 1
Cleveland 2 2 Rockford 1 1
Grand Rapids 1 1 Springfield 3 3
Hartford 3 3 Syracuse 1 1
Hershey 6 6 Toronto 1 1
Lehigh Valley 6 6 Utica 1 1

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Thoughts:

  • I am not a fan of playing Charlotte, a divisional foe, just four times. Those games matter.
  • Further, I’m not a fan of playing Syracuse just twice. Those games turn into premier games in that it’s the only time all season that you will see the club. I don’t associate that at all with the Crunch.
  • Easy fix is to simply take two games off of the Hershey and Lehigh Valley series, only play the Phantoms and Bears 10 games, and add a game to the Charlotte series and one more to Syracuse.
    • That would likely mean that the Penguins would have to play three straight in Charlotte. I don’t know that they would want to do that because of distance.
  • The Cleveland series will likely be a back to back Friday-Saturday series in Cleveland.
  • I’m not complaining, but I would have liked to have seen Iowa and Chicago on the matrix instead of the same combination of Milwaukee, Grand Rapids and Rockford. But hey, they are Western Conference teams.

Overall, pretty business as usual. Schedule should be out pretty soon, once the Calder Cup Finals wrap up in about a month.

The Offseason Moves List has its own dedicated page now, which you can access here or just use the tab at the top of the blog.

Next blog update will be the Conference Finals Preview. Toronto is in, awaiting the winner of Lehigh Valley and Charlotte. Texas is a game away from advancing past Tucson and Rockford has Manitoba in a 3-0 hole. Look for that very soon.

The AHL, WBS

Penguin Contract Statuses

1 Comment Posted by on May 9, 2018

I figured I would bring this back from the dead after not doing it last season. It’s the contract board for the offseason for the Penguins.

I discuss only players that played in the AHL for Wilkes-Barre. In my next blog post, whenever that is, I will pin this to the top of the blog and add it to a page and edit it as the summer goes on.

Here we go, in no particular order.

Player Position Status Description
Dominik Simon C RFA Serviceable enough that the Penguins may qualify him. If not, he’s definitely a upper echelon tweener type player.
Josh Jooris C UFA Didn’t really have much of an impact after coming over in the Greg McKegg trade. Was a full time NHLer when the trade happened with Carolina. Could fit in nice somewhere else.
Andrey Pedan D RFA Rumor is he is KHL bound. PIT may qualify his North American rights.
Thomas DiPauli LW RFA Should get qualified. Injury cut short the remainder of his season.
Ethan Prow D RFA Should be a lock to be qualified and will be playing meaningful AHL minutes in 18-19.
Teddy Blueger LW RFA Had an NHL cup of coffee but never dressed in a brief call-up. Expect him to be qualified.
Lukas Bengtsson D RFA May have a European deal lined up. Has health issues which has kept him from playing a full season.
Tobias Lindberg LW RFA Was one of the minor keys in the move that brought Derek Brassard to Pittsburgh. Never played a game with WBS.
Daniel Sprong RW RFA GM Rutherford indicated on breakup day that he expects Sprong to be with Pittsburgh in the Fall. In order for that to occur he must be qualified.
Kevin Czuczman D UFA He’s the type of player you want to see come back next season. I think he moves on though.
Frank Corrado D RFA He’ll be 26 next year and has played in just 7 games for PIT. I let him walk. We’ll see what happens.
J-S Dea C RFA Didn’t really do much to establish himself this season in the AHL. He’s an interesting case.
Tom Sestito LW UFA Have a sense that if he decides to re-sign, he does so here in WBS as I get the sense that he has enjoyed his time here. Otherwise, I think he retires.
Jarred Tinordi D UFA He may be looking for NHL work elsewhere, but that ship may have sailed.
Zach Trotman D UFA Same as Tinordi above, Trotman is a year older, too.
Michael Leighton G UFA At age 36, that’s a lot of tread on the tires. He’d fit in perfect next year with Anthony Peters as his mentor as PIT doesn’t have any other goalies under contract eligible to play in the AHL next year.
Vincent Dunn C RFA Was one of the minor pieces in the Derek Brassard mega deal and never played in WBS.
Tristan Jarry G RFA Question becomes did Jarry establish himself enough to be Matt Murray’s backup for next year. Casey DeSmith is already under contract so Jarry is already behind the proverbial 8-ball. Plus, Jarry would need waivers.

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Below are the players on AHL contracts only.

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Ryan Haggerty RW UFA Wilkes-Barre re-signed him last summer. I’m sure they would like to to the same, but will he return for a third year?
Christian Thomas RW UFA While auditioning for international work, still managed a good year in the AHL. He’s high on my list to get back here in 18-19.
Jarrett Burton C UFA He’s a love him or hate him type player. The coaching staff seemed to love him as Burton was a staple in the lineup night in and night out.
Joseph Cramarossa C UFA Hard nosed, lunch pail type player. More success with WBS then with Stockton, where he came over from in a trade for Colin Smith
Cody Wydo LW UFA ECHL depth player. I don’t see a fit here with the crop of draft picks at forward coming down the pipeline.
Reid Gardiner RW UFA Sort of got lost in the shuffle after getting re-signed by WBS out of juniors. Can he carve an AHL niche? Sure. Will it be with the Penguins? Remains to be seen.
Patrick McGrath RW UFA Local product limited to 19 games because of one dimension.
Kevin Spinozzi D UFA Made team out of training camp and was used as ECHL depth.
Kevin Schulze D UFA Dime a dozen defender.
Cam Brown C UFA Decent year in the ECHL with the Nailers. Was contracted out to two AHL teams, the Penguins had his services for one game.
Gage Quinney F UFA AHL depth. Plays a role, but so do a lot of other guys in a similar boat.
Troy Josephs C UFA? I can’t find anything on his status as far as U/RFA. I think it’s fair to say he was lost in the shuffle this season.
Pittsburgh, WBS

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